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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Paint Stratigraphy bar chart, light theme: Stacked bars drawn as paint cross-sections in historic pigments with period tags.

Paint Stratigraphy

LightBar

Stacked bars drawn as paint cross-sections in historic pigments with period tags.

  • Yellow ochre#C99A3B
  • Prussian blue#2E4A6B
  • Lead white#EDE9E1
  • Verdigris#4E8C77
  • Oxblood#7A2E2A
  • Warm white#FBF8F2

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 "Paint Stratigraphy" 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 conservator's paint analysis report. Each bar reads like a microscope cross-section of paint layers, built from historic pigment colors on a warm white page, set entirely in a bookish serif. Scholarly, tactile and quiet.

Colors (use these exact values):
- Page: #FBF8F2 (warm white).
- Series, in order (earliest first): #C99A3B (yellow ochre), #2E4A6B (Prussian blue), #EDE9E1 (lead white, always with a 0.7px #A9A193 outline so it holds against the page), #4E8C77 (verdigris), #7A2E2A (oxblood). Add further series from the same earth palette only if needed.
- Ink: #2A2622. Secondary text: #6E665C. Hairline guides and rules: #E3DDD2.

Typography (Google Fonts):
- Libre Baskerville throughout. Eyebrow 11px 400 uppercase with 2.2px letter-spacing in #6E665C; title 700, 28px, #2A2622, sentence case, stating the finding; subtitle italic 14.5px #6E665C with measure and unit; category labels 14px (the leading category 700); sample codes under them 10px with 1px letter-spacing ("CM-04"); period tags italic 9.5px #6E665C; totals 14px 700; key labels 12.5px; notes and source 11 to 12px (italic for notes).

Layout:
- 56px side margins. Eyebrow y 58, title y 96, subtitle y 124, a pigment key row at y 146 to 160 (14px squares, 21px to label, 26px between items).
- Plot x 214 to 852 for 0 to 260 µm. Rows every 54px from y 186: a 12px period-tag lane, then a 26px bar.
- Category labels right-aligned 16px left of the plot, sample code 16px below each.
- A micron scale bar under the chart at y 528, a 1px #E3DDD2 footer rule at y 562 and the source line at y 582.

Axes and grid:
- No axis labels. Faint 1px #E3DDD2 vertical guides every 50 units. A 1.4px #2A2622 vertical line at zero (the substrate edge the layers sit on).
- Scale bar instead of an axis: a 5px-tall bar representing 100 units, divided into four alternating #2A2622 / page-colored blocks with 0.8px ink outlines, labeled "0", "50" and "100 µm" in 11px below, "Scale" in italic to its left, and an italic note on the right ("Cross-sections at 200×, polarised light").

Marks:
- Bar chart: horizontal stacked bars, earliest layer at the left, sorted by total. Square ends. Boundaries between layers are gently wavy (about ±2px, sampled at 7 points down the bar, deterministic), like real paint strata; the zero edge and the bar end stay straight. Over the bars lay a fine grain (fractal noise, base frequency 1.1, 2 octaves, dark brown at about 20% alpha, clipped to the bars). A tiny 4px tick plus italic period tag ("c.1765") centered above every segment. Total at the bar end, 10px right, 14px 700, with the unit on the first row only.
- Line chart: each series is a 2px line in its pigment color with small square markers (5px), lead white drawn with a #A9A193 outline; stack order and colors follow the pigment key. Label each line at its end with the pigment name in 12px italic, and add the period tag above the first point of each line. Keep the scale bar under the plot in place of an x-axis ruler only if the x measure is a length; otherwise use 11px serif year labels.

Avoid: rounded corners, gradients, shadows, sans-serif type, saturated modern colors, a numeric x-axis, and period tags that collide (drop a tag only if its segment is narrower than the tag).

When you're done, render the chart and check that lead white still reads against the page, every period tag sits over its own segment, the wavy boundaries never change a segment's length by more than 2px, and the title number matches the largest total.