refining charts using adobe illustrator
TRANSCRIPT
Refining charts in Adobe IllustratorKristen SosulskiAssociate Professor of Information Systems @ NYU SternDirector of Education for the NYU Stern W.R. Berkley Innovation Lab@sosulski | [email protected] | kristensosulski.com
Take a look at this rendering of a chart in R.
It doesn’t look so good….
∎ For example, look at the chart presented here.
∎ There are many aspects of the chart that violate our design principles.
Place your screenshot here
With R the rendering of the visualizations could use a little work.
DESIGNChart junk?High data ink ratio?Readability? Font size? Orientation? PRINCIPLES
∎ There is a lot of chart junk □ The frame around the
chart□ Tick marks
∎ Readability is impaired□ The vertical orientation of
the text on the y-axis□ The use of mixed case
lettering
Place your screenshot here
Can you identify those design principles that are violated?
The frameTick marksThe vertical textMixed case lettering
Editing charts in
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR
∎ It’s simple to edit text as well such as titles, scales, x and y axis labels.
∎ Download this PDF file at http://bit.ly/illustrator_ex to follow along with the example or work with your own.
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We can easily remove the chart junk elements such as borders and tick marks.
∎ You can do this is in RStudio.∎ Go to export > Save Plot as
PDF..
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Step 1. Save your chart as a PDFSkip this step if you downloaded the file from this tutorial.
Go to File > Open and navigate to your PDF File.
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Step 2. Open PDF document in Adobe Illustrator
∎ Once you have the file open, look for the Tools window.
∎ If you don’t see the Tools window, go to the Window menu and click Tools to make it visible
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Step 3. Enable the tools window
Tools window
∎ The white arrow is called the Direct Selection tool.
∎ The black arrow is called the Selection tool.
∎ Use the the white “direct” selection tool to edit content such as titles and labels.
∎ Use the black “selection” tool to move objects.
Step 4. Find the tools the direct selection and selection tools.
“Direct selection” tool
“Selection” tool
∎ Use the black Selection arrow. ∎ Click and drag it over the
image. The border of the images appears highlighted in blue. This is called the clipping mask.
∎ Press delete on your keyboard to remove it.
∎ If this deletes the graphic, undo the edit, and use the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) to highlight the clipping mask instead.
Step 5. Remove the clipping mask
The clipping mask is selected in blue
∎ Use the black Selection arrow. ∎ Click and drag it over the
border. The border appears highlighted.
∎ Press delete on your keyboard to remove it.
∎ To remove the tick marks, select each tick mark and press delete.
Step 6. Remove the border and tick marks
The border is selected in blue
∎ Use the white Direct Selection arrow.
∎ Click over the text you want to modify and edit it.
∎ Show the Type > Character window to change the style and size of the font.
Step 7. Modify the text
Type Window
Select the text and double click to begin editing.
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR
LIVE DEMOhttps://youtu.be/qaBO4J_XQ7o
It’s easy to edit your charts in Adobe Illustrator.
The next step for you to continue working on it to add attribution and a story to your data.
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STEPS
CREDITSContent created by Kristen Sosulski, Ed.D Copyright 2016
Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free:∎ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival∎ Photographs by Unsplash