Bar chart in 1786: Fit
Craft: honour length of rectangles on one baseline and decoration falls away. Keep Bar chart with “Fit” and 1786 from 1786. The scale must show zero (or a declared break) and units.
William Playfair, Commercial and Political Atlas, 1786 Yes if one claim is visible at a glance in Meta, Google and retail print; otherwise link to a full figure. Yes for lab reports and poster boards if axes, units and a source line are present. Excel or Google Sheets or PowerPoint; export SVG/PDF.
Do not rely on hue alone. Label directly and check greyscale. Bar chart: honour length of rectangles on one baseline, and switch when too many categories, 3-D extrusion, or dual-axis tricks. The core mark of Bar chart is length of rectangles on one baseline. comparing a handful of categories at one time
The eye compares length and position more accurately than area. PowerPoint, Excel or Google Sheets and Meta, Google and retail print share the same geometry. Decoration rarely persuades; it slows reading. Perspective distortion wrecks comparison. Keep it flat. Do not stack stories. One Bar chart, one claim.
Keep axis, unit, and year. If “Fit” is the axis, the figure is 1786 and the year is 1786. Keep Bar chart with “Fit” and 1786 from 1786. 17861786
Figures to keep
- Year of the chart
- 1786
- Axis figure
- 1786
- Chart
- Bar chart
- How to read it
- Fit