References
Key Papers and Books
Key Papers
Essential research on color use, perception, and data visualization:
- Crameri, Shephard, and Heron (2020) - The misuse of color in science communication
- Borkin et al. (2011) - Evaluation of visualization effectiveness
- Gołębiowska and Çöltekin (2022) - Problems with rainbow color schemes
- Heron, Crameri, and Shephard (2021) - Rainbow colormaps and their issues
Books
- Wilke (2019) - Fundamentals of Data Visualization - Comprehensive guide to visualization principles (free online)
- R Graphics Cookbook by Winston Chang - Practical recipes for ggplot2 (free online)
Color Resources
Tools
- ColorBrewer - Interactive tool for selecting color palettes for maps and data visualization
- Coblis - Color Blindness Simulator - Upload images to see how they appear with different types of color vision deficiency
R Packages
- viridis - Perceptually uniform color scales - https://cran.r-project.org/package=viridis
- RColorBrewer - ColorBrewer palettes for R
- colorspace - Color manipulation and assessment
- dichromat - Simulate color blindness
- paletteer - Collection of 2000+ palettes
Getting help
Documentation
- ggplot2 Reference - Complete function reference
- plotly for R - Interactive plotting library
Community
- Stack Overflow - Q&A for ggplot2 questions
Software
Essential Tools
Helpful Extensions
- esquisse - Interactive ggplot2 builder
- ggThemeAssist - Visual theme customization
Inspiration
Outstanding Examples
- BBC Visual and Data Journalism - BBC’s ggplot2 cookbook
- Financial Times Visual Vocabulary - Guide to chart types
Contributing
Found a useful resource not listed here? Contributions are welcome!
- GitHub: https://github.com/stanstrup/figure_presentation
- Issues: Report problems or suggest additions
- Pull Requests: Contribute improvements
Citation
If you find this guide useful in your work, please cite:
Stanstrup, J. (2025). Academic Figures: Common Pitfalls and Best Practices.
https://stanstrup.github.io/figure_presentation/