36.7 Visualizations and Plots

You can customize your plots based on your preferred journals. Here, I am creating a custom setting for the American Marketing Association.

American-Marketing-Association-ready theme for plots

library(ggplot2)

# check available fonts
# windowsFonts()

# for Times New Roman
# names(windowsFonts()[windowsFonts()=="TT Times New Roman"])

# Making a theme
amatheme = theme_bw(base_size = 14, base_family = "serif") + # This is Time New Roman
    
    theme(
        # remove major gridlines
        panel.grid.major   = element_blank(),

        # remove minor gridlines
        panel.grid.minor   = element_blank(),

        # remove panel border
        panel.border       = element_blank(),

        line               = element_line(),

        # change font
        text               = element_text(),

        # if you want to remove legend title
        # legend.title     = element_blank(),

        legend.title       = element_text(size = rel(0.6), face = "bold"),

        # change font size of legend
        legend.text        = element_text(size = rel(0.6)),
        
        legend.background  = element_rect(color = "black"),
        
        # legend.margin    = margin(t = 5, l = 5, r = 5, b = 5),
        # legend.key       = element_rect(color = NA, fill = NA),

        # change font size of main title
        plot.title         = element_text(
            size           = rel(1.2),
            face           = "bold",
            hjust          = 0.5,
            margin         = margin(b = 15)
        ),
        
        plot.margin        = unit(c(1, 1, 1, 1), "cm"),

        # add black line along axes
        axis.line          = element_line(colour = "black", linewidth = .8),
        
        axis.ticks         = element_line(),
        

        # axis title
        axis.title.x       = element_text(size = rel(1.2), face = "bold"),
        axis.title.y       = element_text(size = rel(1.2), face = "bold"),

        # axis text size
        axis.text.y        = element_text(size = rel(1)),
        axis.text.x        = element_text(size = rel(1))
    )

Example

library(tidyverse)
library(ggsci)
data("mtcars")
yourplot <- mtcars %>%
    select(mpg, cyl, gear) %>%
    ggplot(., aes(x = mpg, y = cyl, fill = gear)) + 
    geom_point() +
    labs(title="Some Plot") 

yourplot + 
    amatheme + 
    # choose different color theme
    scale_color_npg() 

yourplot + 
    amatheme + 
    scale_color_continuous()

Other pre-specified themes

library(ggthemes)


# Stata theme
yourplot +
    theme_stata()

# The economist theme
yourplot + 
    theme_economist()

yourplot + 
    theme_economist_white()

# Wall street journal theme
yourplot + 
    theme_wsj()

# APA theme
yourplot +
    jtools::theme_apa(
        legend.font.size = 24,
        x.font.size = 20,
        y.font.size = 20
    )