Colour palettes

grafify offers colour blind-friendly palettes for categorical and quantitative data.


Colours in grafify

All plot_ functions have arguments that apply different grafify palette and colour options directly. Vignettes of plot_ functions describe how to do this.

This vignette describes scale_fill_grafify and scale_colour_grafify which can be used with any ggplot2 graph.

This vignette explains the scale_fill_ and scale_colour_ functions in grafify to apply grafify colour schemes on any ggplot2 object.

Since v2.3.0, grafify offers twelve colour blind-friendly palettes are available for nominal or categorical or discreet variables, with 4-20 colours per scheme.

Five schemes are available for quantitative data, including three sequential or continuous and two divergent schemes.

These are based on schemes by Paul Tol, Okabe-Ito, Mike Mol’s blog, and cols4all package).

scale_fill_ and scale_colour_ (or scale_color_)

These functions from grafify can be used to add colours to any ggplot2 object. The default fill/colour scale will add the okabe_ito palette. This only works when the variable is discrete/nominal, and throw up an error if the variable is numeric. Use one of the quantitative palettes when there’s an error.

Discrete/nominal/categorical colour schemes available:

okabe_ito, bright, contrast, dark, kelly, light, muted, pale, r4, safe, vibrant

Sequential colour schemes grey_conti, blue_conti, yellow_conti

Divergent quantitative palettes

OrBl_div, PrGn_div

There are only 3 arguments, palette, ColSeq (logical) and reverse (logical).

Use ColSeq = FALSE to get the most distant colours in the palette rather sequential colours from the chosen palette (default is TRUE).

Applying scale_colour_grafify:

This example uses the InsectSprays dataset in R (try str(InsectSprays) to see it has 6 levels of one factor “spray” and “count” as the response variable).

ggplot(data = InsectSprays,         #data table
        aes(x = spray, y = count))+
  geom_point(size = 3, 
             aes(colour = spray))+
  scale_colour_grafify()+  #default settings
  labs(title = "scale_colour_grafify",
       subtitle = "(default `okabe_ito` palette)")+
  theme_classic(base_size = 21)

Reversing colour order:

ggplot(data = InsectSprays,         #data table
        aes(x = spray, y = count))+
  geom_point(size = 3, 
             aes(colour = spray))+
  scale_colour_grafify(reverse = TRUE)+ #reversed colour, default palette
  labs(title = "scale_colour_grafify",
       subtitle = "reverse `okabe_ito` palette")+
  theme_classic(base_size = 21)

Picking distant colours

Set the ColSeq argument to FALSE to not pick sequential colours.

ggplot(data = InsectSprays,         #data table
        aes(x = spray, y = count))+
  geom_point(size = 3, 
             aes(colour = spray))+
  scale_colour_grafify(ColSeq = FALSE)+ #not sequential colours
  labs(title = "scale_colour_grafify",
       subtitle = "`ColSeq = FALSE`")+
  theme_classic(base_size = 21)

Quantitative palettes

(in v2.3 and earlier, this needed the discrete argument, but this has been dropped. ).

There are five palettes available:

Sequential quantitative palettes:

grey_conti, blue_conti, yellow_conti

Divergent quantitative palettes:

OrBl_div, PrGn_div

Here are examples on a quantitative variable using the mtcars data set in R.

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg, y = disp))+
  geom_point(aes(fill = gear),
             size = 4, shape = 21)+
  scale_fill_grafify(palette = "blue_conti")+ #blue_conti scheme
  theme_classic(base_size = 21)+
  labs("`blue_conti` colour scheme")+
  theme_classic(base_size = 21)
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg, y = disp))+
  geom_point(aes(fill = gear),
             size = 4, shape = 21)+
  scale_fill_grafify(palette = "yellow_conti")+ #yellow_conti scheme
  theme_classic(base_size = 21)+
  labs("`yellow_conti` colour scheme")+
  theme_classic(base_size = 21)

Viewing grafify palettes and hexcodes

Palettes can be quickly viewed, along with hexcodes, using the plot_grafify_palette call.

plot_grafify_palette(palette = "okabe_ito") 
plot_grafify_palette(palette = "kelly")

You can get the value of the hexcodes if you want to manually apply these colours to other objects in R, for example with scale_colour_manual.

Here is the list of hex codes of all the colours in the palettes.

grafify:::graf_palettes
#> $okabe_ito
#>      ok_orange     ok_skyblue   ok_bluegreen      ok_yellow 
#>      "#E69F00"      "#56B4E9"      "#009E73"      "#F0E442" 
#>        ok_blue  ok_vermillion   ok_redpurple        ok_grey 
#>      "#0072B2"      "#D55E00"      "#CC79A7"      "#999999" 
#> contrast_black 
#>      "#000000" 
#> 
#> $bright
#>    bright_red   bright_blue bright_yellow  bright_green   bright_cyan 
#>     "#ee6677"     "#4477aa"     "#ccbb44"     "#228833"     "#66ccee" 
#> bright_purple   bright_grey 
#>     "#aa3377"     "#bbbbbb" 
#> 
#> $contrast
#>  contrast_black  contrast_white contrast_yellow    contrast_red 
#>       "#000000"       "#ffffff"       "#ddaa33"       "#bb5566" 
#>   contrast_blue 
#>       "#004488" 
#> 
#> $dark
#>   dark_blue   dark_cyan dark_yellow  dark_green    dark_red 
#>   "#222255"   "#225555"   "#666633"   "#225522"   "#663333" 
#>   dark_grey 
#>   "#555555" 
#> 
#> $fishy
#>   fishy_1   fishy_2   fishy_3   fishy_4   fishy_5   fishy_6   fishy_7 
#> "#6388b4" "#ffae34" "#ef6f6a" "#8cc2ca" "#c3bc3f" "#55ad89" "#bb7693" 
#>   fishy_8   fishy_9 
#> "#baa094" "#767676" 
#> 
#> $kelly
#>   kelly_1   kelly_2   kelly_3   kelly_4   kelly_5   kelly_6   kelly_7 
#> "#F3C300" "#875692" "#F38400" "#A1CAF1" "#BE0032" "#C2B280" "#848482" 
#>   kelly_8   kelly_9  kelly_10  kelly_11  kelly_12  kelly_13  kelly_14 
#> "#008856" "#E68FAC" "#0067A5" "#F99379" "#604E97" "#F6A600" "#B3446C" 
#>  kelly_15  kelly_16  kelly_17  kelly_18  kelly_19  kelly_20 
#> "#DCD300" "#882D17" "#8DB600" "#654522" "#E25822" "#2B3D26" 
#> 
#> $light
#> light_orange   light_blue light_yellow   light_pink   light_cyan 
#>    "#ee8866"    "#77aadd"    "#eedd88"    "#ffaabb"    "#99ddff" 
#>   light_mint   light_pear  light_olive    pale_grey 
#>    "#44bb99"    "#bbcc33"    "#aaaa00"    "#dddddd" 
#> 
#> $muted
#>   muted_rose muted_indigo   muted_sand  muted_green   muted_cyan 
#>    "#cc6677"    "#332288"    "#ddcc77"    "#117733"    "#88ccee" 
#>   muted_wine   muted_teal  muted_olive muted_purple    pale_grey 
#>    "#882255"    "#44aa99"    "#999933"    "#aa4499"    "#dddddd" 
#> 
#> $pale
#>   pale_blue   pale_cyan  pale_green pale_yellow    pale_red 
#>   "#bbccee"   "#cceeff"   "#ccddaa"   "#eeeebb"   "#ffcccc" 
#>   pale_grey 
#>   "#dddddd" 
#> 
#> $r4
#>      r4_1      r4_2      r4_3      r4_4      r4_5      r4_6 
#> "#DF536B" "#61D04F" "#2297E6" "#28E2E5" "#CD0BBC" "#F5C710" 
#> 
#> $safe
#>      safe_blue       safe_red    safe_yellow     safe_green 
#>      "#88CCEE"      "#CC6677"      "#DDCC77"      "#117733" 
#>    safe_violet    safe_purple safe_bluegreen      safe_bush 
#>      "#332288"      "#AA4499"      "#44AA99"      "#999933" 
#>   safe_reddish      safe_wine   safe_skyblue 
#>      "#882255"      "#661100"      "#6699CC" 
#> 
#> $vibrant
#>  vibrant_orange    vibrant_blue vibrant_magenta    vibrant_cyan 
#>       "#ee7733"       "#0077bb"       "#ee3377"       "#33bbee" 
#>     vibrant_red    vibrant_teal     bright_grey 
#>       "#cc3311"       "#009988"       "#bbbbbb" 
#> 
#> $OrBl_div
#>    OrBl_1    OrBl_2    OrBl_3    OrBl_4    OrBl_5    OrBl_6    OrBl_7 
#> "#9E3D21" "#BE4E21" "#DA6524" "#EF8530" "#F0AC72" "#D8D4C9" "#A2BCCF" 
#>    OrBl_8    OrBl_9   OrBl_10   OrBl_11 
#> "#6FA3CB" "#5789B6" "#4071A0" "#2B5B8A" 
#> 
#> $PrGn_div
#>    PrGn_1    PrGn_2    PrGn_3    PrGn_4    PrGn_5    PrGn_6    PrGn_7 
#> "#762A83" "#9262A2" "#B18FC0" "#D0B7D8" "#EADAEB" "#F7F7F7" "#DFF1DA" 
#>    PrGn_8    PrGn_9   PrGn_10   PrGn_11 
#> "#BEDEB2" "#8CC485" "#4EA258" "#1A7837" 
#> 
#> $blue_conti
#>    blue_1    blue_2    blue_3    blue_4    blue_5    blue_6    blue_7 
#> "#F8F8F8" "#E5F1FF" "#D0E4FF" "#B6D2F8" "#99BFEE" "#79ABE1" "#5294D3" 
#>    blue_8    blue_9   blue_10   blue_11 
#> "#027EC4" "#0066A5" "#004C85" "#00356C" 
#> 
#> $grey_conti
#>  grey_lin1  grey_lin2  grey_lin3  grey_lin4  grey_lin5  grey_lin6 
#>  "#F1F1F1"  "#D8D8D8"  "#C0C0C0"  "#A9A9A9"  "#929292"  "#7D7D7D" 
#>  grey_lin7  grey_lin8  grey_lin9 grey_lin10 grey_lin11 
#>  "#676767"  "#535353"  "#3F3F3F"  "#2C2C2C"  "#1A1A1A" 
#> 
#> $yellow_conti
#>  YlOrBr_1  YlOrBr_2  YlOrBr_3  YlOrBr_4  YlOrBr_5  YlOrBr_6  YlOrBr_7 
#> "#FFFFE5" "#FFF7BC" "#FEE391" "#FEC44F" "#FB9A29" "#EC7014" "#CC4C02" 
#>  YlOrBr_8  YlOrBr_9 
#> "#993404" "#662506" 
#> 
#> $all_grafify
#>       ok_orange      ok_skyblue    ok_bluegreen       ok_yellow 
#>       "#E69F00"       "#56B4E9"       "#009E73"       "#F0E442" 
#>         ok_blue   ok_vermillion    ok_redpurple    muted_indigo 
#>       "#0072B2"       "#D55E00"       "#CC79A7"       "#332288" 
#>      muted_cyan      muted_teal     muted_green     muted_olive 
#>       "#88ccee"       "#44aa99"       "#117733"       "#999933" 
#>      muted_sand      muted_rose      muted_wine    muted_purple 
#>       "#ddcc77"       "#cc6677"       "#882255"       "#aa4499" 
#>      light_blue      light_cyan      light_mint      light_pear 
#>       "#77aadd"       "#99ddff"       "#44bb99"       "#bbcc33" 
#>     light_olive    light_yellow    light_orange      light_pink 
#>       "#aaaa00"       "#eedd88"       "#ee8866"       "#ffaabb" 
#>       pale_blue       pale_cyan      pale_green     pale_yellow 
#>       "#bbccee"       "#cceeff"       "#ccddaa"       "#eeeebb" 
#>        pale_red       pale_grey       dark_grey     bright_grey 
#>       "#ffcccc"       "#dddddd"       "#555555"       "#bbbbbb" 
#>         ok_grey  contrast_white contrast_yellow    contrast_red 
#>       "#999999"       "#ffffff"       "#ddaa33"       "#bb5566" 
#>   contrast_blue  contrast_black    vibrant_blue    vibrant_cyan 
#>       "#004488"       "#000000"       "#0077bb"       "#33bbee" 
#>    vibrant_teal  vibrant_orange     vibrant_red vibrant_magenta 
#>       "#009988"       "#ee7733"       "#cc3311"       "#ee3377" 
#>       dark_blue       dark_cyan      dark_green     dark_yellow 
#>       "#222255"       "#225555"       "#225522"       "#666633" 
#>        dark_red     bright_blue     bright_cyan    bright_green 
#>       "#663333"       "#4477aa"       "#66ccee"       "#228833" 
#>   bright_yellow      bright_red   bright_purple 
#>       "#ccbb44"       "#ee6677"       "#aa3377"

Getting individual Hex codes

Since v1.5.1 get_graf_colours and related functions are no longer internal, and ::: is not necessary to use the. They’re available in the grafify namespace. Get hex codes for all of the above colours by their names as follows.

get_graf_colours("ok_orange")
#> ok_orange 
#> "#E69F00"
get_graf_colours("muted_rose",  "bright_yellow")
#>    muted_rose bright_yellow 
#>     "#cc6677"     "#ccbb44"