---
title: "How to Make Pretty Charts"
description: "Learn how to create professional data visualizations using R and ggplot2. A step-by-step guide for startup founders and analysts to build publication-quality charts."
categories: ["data analysis"]
keywords: ["R programming","ggplot2","data visualization","charts","data science","RStudio","statistical graphics","data analysis","Tomasz Tunguz","Theory Ventures"]
ai_summary: "Learn to create professional charts using R and ggplot2 with this step-by-step guide for data visualization."
date: 2015-04-30
lastmod: 2026-07-20
canonical_url: https://www.tomtunguz.com/how-to-make-pretty-charts/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---

<a href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/q_auto/f_auto/w_auto/random_data.png">![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/q_auto/f_auto/w_auto/random_data.png)</a>

When I first started writing, I wondered how I could make charts like those [in the Economist](https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1275&bih=705&q=economist+charts&oq=economist+charts&gs_l=img.3..0.411.2309.0.2485.20.16.1.1.1.0.168.1341.11j5.16.0.msedr...0...1ac.1.64.img..2.18.1343.WdRULTHHpLk) or in the New York Times, the beautifully formatted ones. After some research, I figured out how. And this post explains how you can do it, too. 

Many data scientists use a free open-source language called R. It's a great tool for processing data and I use R to process all the data for this blog. You can download it [here](http://www.r-project.org). Alternatively, many people use [RStudio](http://www.rstudio.com), an editor which makes R much easier to use. To make these charts, I use a library written by Hadley Wickham called [ggplot2](http://ggplot2.org).  ggplot2 has all kinds of charts: area, line, bar, etc. [You can see all of them here](http://docs.ggplot2.org/current/)

That all sounds much more complicated than it is. To make the chart above which is a point chart of random data, just download RStudio, create a new file and paste the code below into it. Then hit the run button and you should have it. My code borrows heavily from [Max Woolf's tutorial for the theme function.](http://minimaxir.com/2015/02/ggplot-tutorial/?utm_content=bufferd59e3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer) I used to do it all in line, but collecting all the formatting details in a function is an elegant way of formatting the plot. Max's post is well worth reading to understand some of the more complex features of ggplot. 


    #install and load charting library
    install.packages("ggplot2")
    library(ggplot2)

    #create a data set with random data
    data = data.frame("x" = runif(10, 3,10), "y"=runif(10,50,250))

    #define the way the chart looks
    new_theme <- function() {

    # Set the core colors
    color.background = "white"
    color.grid.major = "gray70"
    color.axis.text = "gray30"
    color.axis.title = "gray50"
    color.title = "gray30"

    # Other key values
    theme_bw(base_size=18) +
    theme(text=element_text(family="Helvetica")) +

    # Set the backrgound
    theme(panel.background=element_rect(fill=color.background, color=color.background)) +
    theme(plot.background=element_rect(fill=color.background, color=color.background)) +
    theme(panel.border=element_rect(color=color.background)) +

    # Format the grid
    theme(panel.grid.major.y=element_line(color=color.grid.major,size=.25)) +
      theme(panel.grid.major.x=element_blank()) +
    theme(panel.grid.minor=element_blank()) +
    theme(axis.ticks=element_blank()) +
    theme(strip.background = element_rect(fill="white"))+

    # Format the legend, bottom by default
    theme(legend.position="bottom") +
    theme(legend.background = element_rect(fill=color.background)) +
    theme(legend.key = element_rect(colour = 'white')) +
    theme(legend.text = element_text(size=18,color=color.axis.title)) +

    # Set title and axis labels, and format these and tick marks
    theme(plot.title=element_text(color=color.title, size=18, vjust=1.25)) +
    theme(axis.text.x=element_text(size=18,color=color.axis.text)) +
    theme(axis.text.y=element_text(size=18,color=color.axis.text)) +
    theme(axis.title.x=element_text(size=18,color=color.axis.title, vjust=0)) +
    theme(axis.title.y=element_text(size=18,color=color.axis.title, vjust=1.25)) 
    }

    # generate the plot and save it
    ggplot(data) + geom_point(aes(x,y), size=10, colour="red", alpha=0.5)+ geom_smooth(aes(x,y), size=3, colour="dodgerblue2") + theme() + labs(title="Sample Random Data", x="X Axis", y="Y Axis") + annotate("text", x = Inf, y = -Inf, label = "My First R Plot",hjust=1.1, vjust=-.5, col="gray", cex=4, alpha = 0.8)
    ggsave("random_data.png", width=12, height=9)

After saving the file, I just upload it to Amazon and add a link to a blog post. And that's it!