Chart Prompts

1,337 ways to dress a line or bar chart, 669 light and 668 dark. Open any chart to see it full size and copy a prompt that gives your own chart the same look.

Every chart uses illustrative data. The prompts work with any coding agent and any charting library; they describe colors, type, spacing and marks precisely enough to reproduce each look.

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Colophon line chart, light theme: A classical book page with old-style figures, marginalia and one rubricated line.

Colophon

LightLine

A classical book page with old-style figures, marginalia and one rubricated line.

  • Laid paper#F5EFE2
  • Iron-gall ink#2B2520
  • Rubric red#A8322A
  • Sepia#9C8468
  • Rule#D8CCB4

Prompt for your coding agent

Paste it with your chart's code. It restyles your data to match this chart.

Restyle my chart in the "Colophon" style described below. Keep my data, chart type, title meaning and units; change only the presentation. Use the charting library this project already uses (plain SVG if there is none). If the library can't express a detail, draw it in a custom layer instead of dropping it. Measurements assume a 960 x 600 chart; scale them proportionally.

Mood: a page from a finely printed book. Antique laid paper, iron-gall ink, classical margins and a single rubricated red, as if a scholarly press set the chart in metal type. Quiet, symmetrical and literate.

Colors (use these exact values):
- Paper: #F5EFE2 for the whole canvas.
- Ink (title, labels, ordinary values): #2B2520.
- Rubric red: #A8322A. Used only for the one highlighted series, its labels, the fleuron and the marginal note.
- Sepia: #9C8468 for all other data marks and the running head, folio and "Chapter" line.
- Rules and axis rails: #D8CCB4. Subtitle and colophon text: #5E5247.

Typography (Google Fonts):
- EB Garamond for all words. Title 500, 31px, centered, sentence case, stating the finding. Subtitle italic 400, 18px, centered, with measure, unit and period.
- Labels (series names, running head) in all small caps (font-variant-caps: all-small-caps), 17px for labels with 0.8px letter-spacing, 15px with 2.4px letter-spacing for the running head.
- All numerals in old-style figures. The served EB Garamond has lining figures only, so set every figure (values, years, folio) in Cormorant Garamond 600, whose default figures are old-style: 19px for values, 21px for column years, 19px for the folio.
- Marginal note and colophon line in EB Garamond italic, 16px and 14px.

Layout:
- Running head at y 44: "Chapter iv" in sepia italic at the left margin (60px), the running title in small caps centered, the folio number at the right margin (900px).
- Title at y 98, subtitle at y 128, then a fleuron at y 156: a small rubric-red leaf (22 x 18px, with a paper-colored midrib) between two 54px sepia hairlines (0.8px).
- The plot sits in a 2:3 block (about 206 x 309px) centered on the page; everything else lives in the margins around it.
- Foot: a 160px centered hairline, then a centered italic colophon line: "Source: ... Set in EB Garamond, figures in Cormorant Garamond; first edition."

Axes and grid:
- No gridlines and no y-axis labels. For a slope chart, two vertical 1px #D8CCB4 rails with 4px outward ticks at round values; column years centered above each rail.
- For a time axis, a 1px #D8CCB4 baseline with 4px ticks and old-style year labels below it.

Marks:
- Line chart: sepia lines at 1.3px, 85% opacity, with 3px radius sepia dots at the ends; the highlighted series in rubric red at 2.6px with 4px dots, drawn last. As a slope chart, names and values hang in the margins: left values right-aligned 14px from the left rail and names 52px from it; right values 14px after the right rail and names 52px after it. Dodge labels vertically to a 19px minimum spacing. For a time series, label each line at its right end in small caps instead of a legend.
- Bar chart: slim sepia bars (about 40% of the band) with square corners, the highlighted bar in rubric red; values in old-style figures just above each bar, category names in small caps beneath the baseline.

Labels and annotation:
- One marginal note in the outer margin, italic rubric red 16px, three short lines on a 21px leading, opening with a pilcrow and set against a 0.8px red vertical rule 12px to its left. It states the highlight's change as a computed number.

Texture:
- Laid paper: faint horizontal laid lines every 4px (#E9E0CC, 0.6px, 55% opacity) and chain lines every 62px (#E6DCC6, 1.2px, 35% opacity).

Avoid: bold sans serif, gradients, shadows, boxes around the plot, legends, more than one red element group, lining figures, and anything that breaks the centered classical symmetry.

When you're done, render the chart and check that every figure is old-style, the labels in each margin never touch, the red is reserved for one series and its note, and the title's claim matches the data.