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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Fiscal Balance bar chart, dark theme: Pale green surpluses and burnt orange deficits over a thin white debt panel.

Fiscal Balance

DarkBar

Pale green surpluses and burnt orange deficits over a thin white debt panel.

  • Charcoal green#121A16
  • Surplus green#86EFAC
  • Deficit orange#EA580C
  • Debt white#F5F5F0
  • Zero line#C9D3CD

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 "Fiscal Balance" 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 fiscal council's annual review on a dark screen. A charcoal green ground, a heavy zero line, blunt surplus and deficit columns, and a thin white debt line in its own panel below on the same timeline.

Colors (use these exact values):
- Page: #121A16 (charcoal green).
- Surplus (positive) #86EFAC; deficit (negative) #EA580C.
- Debt line, its panel title and its labels: #F5F5F0. Zero line: #C9D3CD.
- Gridlines #223029; secondary text #8C9A92; recession columns #3A4741 at 45% opacity; recession tags #A3ADA7. The eyebrow runs in surplus green.

Typography (Google Fonts):
- Libre Franklin 800, 28px, -0.4px letter-spacing, #F5F5F0, for the title stating the finding ("Deficits in 18 of 25 years lifted debt to $61.8bn").
- Barlow Semi Condensed for everything else: eyebrow 600, 12.5px, uppercase, 2px letter-spacing; subtitle 400, 15px, #8C9A92; legend 600, 14px; axis ticks 500, 13px (balance panel muted, debt panel white at 80% opacity); panel titles 600, 11px uppercase, 1.2px letter-spacing (balance muted, debt white); year labels 500, 13px as two-digit years ('09); recession tags 600, 10.5px uppercase, 1px letter-spacing; value labels 700, 13-14px; source 13px.

Layout:
- 56px side margins. Eyebrow, title, subtitle naming both measures with their units and which panel each is in, then a one-line legend of 12px squares (surplus, deficit, recession year) and a line swatch with a hollow dot for the debt.
- Two stacked panels from x 96 to 860 on a shared x axis, never a second y axis: the balance panel from y 196 to 368 and the debt panel from y 420 to 500, with 52px of clear space between them. Each panel has its own uppercase title 12px above its top-left corner ("BUDGET BALANCE, $BN", "PUBLIC DEBT, $BN") and its own left-hand scale. Year labels sit once, under the bottom panel, and recession tags on a row below them. A 1px #223029 rule and the source note close the page.

Axes and grid:
- Balance panel: signed ticks with a true minus sign and plus sign (+5, 0, −5, −10). Debt panel: ticks at 0, 35, 70. Every tick sits on a gridline.
- Gridlines 1px #223029 at every tick except the balance zero. The zero line is drawn heavier: 2px #C9D3CD across the full plot, on top of the bars.
- Recession years get a #3A4741 column at 45% opacity inside each panel (not across the gap) behind the marks, and a "RECESSION 2009" tag below the axis.

Marks:
- Bar chart: diverging columns from zero, about 62% of the band, square corners, surplus in #86EFAC and deficit in #EA580C. Label only the two or three most extreme values just beside the bar tip in the bar's color. The cumulative series goes in the lower panel as a 1.5px #F5F5F0 line with small hollow dots (r 2.3, 1.2px stroke) at each year, and its first value (above the point) and last value (to the right of the point) labeled in white 700.
- Line chart: the balance as a 2.5px line colored by sign (green segments above zero, orange below, split at the zero crossing) with a light fill to zero in the same colors at 25% opacity, the heavy zero line, recession columns and the thin white debt line in its own lower panel as above.

Avoid: a secondary y axis, gradients, rounded bars, glow, a boxed legend inside the plot, and a zero line no heavier than the grid.

When you're done, render the chart and check that the debt line equals the starting stock minus the running sum of balances, the deficit count in the title matches the orange bars, each panel has one scale, the zero line sits above the bars, and recession tags don't overlap the year labels.