Which colours to define for a data visualisation style guide

from: A detailed guide to colours in data visualisation style guides

Outline §

• colours for categories
• shades
• colours for common categories
• accent colours
• Grey
• Sequential and Diverging

Categories §

Hues - Colour for categories §

see: Use different hues to distinguish categories - Categorical colours

Shades - Colour for categories/sub categories §

see: Also create lighter-darker version for a hue

also: How to create a colour scale for an arbitrary main colour by City of London Style Guide

Colour for common categories §

https://blog.datawrapper.de/colors-for-data-vis-style-guides/#:~:text=colors%20to%20define-,Colors%20for%20common%20categories,-If%20you%20find

eg male-female, missing data, positive-negative

Accent colours §

• “primary colour” of the chart
• An accent colour is used for charts that just show one colour.
• “If more than one colour may be used to represent data, use one of the pre-defined categorical colour combos.” Datawrapper

Grey §

• Grey for less important data - not too much saturation and should be perceived as grey
• Grey for everything not data

Sequential and Diverging colours §

• see: How to create a colour scale for an arbitrary main colour by City of London Style Guide

lightness range by Datawrapper

Diverging colour palette is basically 2 sequential scales glued together.

Equally lightness colours §