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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Contact Sheet bar chart, light theme: Each bar in its own film frame, the best one circled in red grease pencil.

Contact Sheet

LightBar

Each bar in its own film frame, the best one circled in red grease pencil.

  • Sheet gray#E6E6E3
  • Film rebate#111111
  • Print white#F7F7F4
  • Silver bar#262626
  • Grease pencil#C62828

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 "Contact Sheet" 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 photographer's contact sheet on the editing table. Strips of 35mm film printed on pale paper, each category in its own frame, frame numbers along the edge, and one frame circled in red grease pencil with a scrawled note. Tactile and working, but tidy and exactly aligned.

Colors (use these exact values):
- Sheet background: #E6E6E3.
- Film rebate (the black strip around the frames): #111111. Sprocket holes: #3A3A38.
- Frame interiors: #F7F7F4. Gridlines inside frames: #DCDCD7. Frame baseline: #9A9A94.
- Data marks and value labels: #262626.
- Edge markings: #FFFFFF for frame numbers and arrows, #BDBDB8 for the small secondary codes, #8C8C86 for the film stock name printed on the bottom edge.
- Grease pencil: #C62828, for the one highlight circle, its arrow and its note only.
- Secondary text (subtitle, axis numbers, source, folio): #5E5E5A.

Typography (Google Fonts):
- Space Mono for everything typed: title 700 26px #111111 stating the finding; subtitle 400 12.5px #5E5E5A with measure, unit, count and a total or average; value labels 700 14px; frame numbers 700 11px white uppercase ("ROLL 01"); secondary edge codes 400 10px ("1A"); stock name 400 8.5px with 2px letter-spacing; axis numbers 400 11px; source and folio 400 11px.
- Caveat Brush 400 27px #C62828 for the handwritten note, rotated -4 degrees.

Layout:
- Title at the top left (44px margin), subtitle under it, then the film strips, then the source bottom left and a folio ("SHEET 3 OF 5 | ...") bottom right.
- Categories run in strips of six frames. Two strips for twelve categories, stacked with a 38px gap (the note lives in that gap). Each strip is a #111111 band with a 30px top rebate, the frames (about 132px tall), and a 22px bottom rebate, extending 14px past the first and last frames.
- Frames: 10px apart, 3px corner radius, all the same size. Sprocket holes (9 x 7 px, 1.6px radius) every 17.5px along both edges of each strip.
- Edge markings in the top rebate above each frame: a small white right-pointing triangle, then the category label in white, and a short code ("1A") right-aligned at the frame's right edge. The film stock name prints small on the bottom rebate.

Axes and grid:
- One shared value scale for every frame. Axis numbers (0, 5, 10, 15) sit outside the strip, 22px left of the first frame, aligned to the gridlines.
- Inside each frame: 1px #DCDCD7 gridlines at those values and a 1px #9A9A94 baseline, inset 8px from the frame sides.

Marks:
- Bar chart: one square-cornered #262626 bar per frame, 42px wide and centered, starting at the baseline, with its value in Space Mono 700 14px 7px above the top. For grouped data, put up to three bars in a frame in #262626, #6E6E69 and #A9A9A3 and add a small typed key in the subtitle.
- Line chart: the frames become a timeline, one frame per period; inside each frame draw that period's sub-series as a 2px #262626 line with 3px dots, all frames sharing the same scale, and label the last point of each frame. Circle the key frame the same way.

Labels and annotation:
- Grease pencil circle around the highlighted frame: two loose, slightly wobbly loops (4.2px at 92% opacity plus 2.4px at 70% opacity, offset a few px), 30px wider and 40px taller than the frame, round caps, with a subtle displacement filter (fractal noise at 1.4 base frequency, displacement scale 2.2) so the stroke looks waxy.
- A curved 3px red arrow from the handwritten note to the circle, ending in an open 13px arrowhead. The note says what to do ("print this one!").

Avoid: color anywhere except the grease pencil, gradients, drop shadows on the film, perfectly geometric circles, and more than one circled frame.

When you're done, render the chart and check that every frame is the same size with bars on one shared scale, the edge labels sit inside the black rebate, the grease pencil circle clears the neighboring value labels, and the note fits in the gap between strips.