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Tips for Making Better Figures and Illustrations

Tips for Making Better Figures and Illustrations. Zhigang Deng. Figure/Illustration Principles. Clarity Aesthetics Quality Efficiency. Clarity. Proper information-embedding Information overloading: NOT GOOD Too little information: why bother to use a figure?

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Tips for Making Better Figures and Illustrations

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  1. Tips for Making Better Figures and Illustrations Zhigang Deng

  2. Figure/Illustration Principles • Clarity • Aesthetics • Quality • Efficiency

  3. Clarity • Proper information-embedding • Information overloading: NOT GOOD • Too little information: why bother to use a figure? • Fundamental Question: Is this figure necessary (can we just use table as an alternative)? What kind of information do I really want to convey to readers? • Visualization/Presentation of Information • Case by Case, non-trivial and need creativity! • Sufficiently clear/readable • Every cure and word should be easily recognizable! • Selection of font sizes depends on the targeted size of figures/illustrations • Important tips: print it on the paper to see whether it is readable! Black-and-white printer is preferred here!

  4. Aesthetics • Color • Consistency within a figure and between figures • Color balance (cold vs warm) • Tip: More colors are not necessary to be better. black/white can make beautiful figures! • Layout • Symmetric vs Asymmetric • Maximally utilize space (often, space is a scarce resource!) • Style • Simple is better.

  5. Quality • High-Resolution • Recommend at least 400 DPI (pixels per inch), otherwise ACM/IEEE may reject it. • Vector Graphics • Always use Vector Graphics format (.pdf, .eps, etc.) if possible • Always use professional drawing software! • YES: Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, MS Visio, etc.) • NO: Word, PowerPoint, and many others.

  6. Efficiency • Is a figure/illustration the best way to represent this data/information or convey the idea? How about other alternatives? • How many seconds/minutes readers need to spend to understand a figure/illustration? • The space occupied by a figure/illustration is worthy? Should we make a figure larger or smaller?

  7. How to learn to draw wonderful figures/illustrations • Learn from examples • Check those published papers (typically on top venues) • I personally recommend ACM SIGGRAPH Paper Proceedings (most of figures are well made and high quality!) • Think, Check, and Improve….. • Often, it is not a one time deal!

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