Publication Standards and Accessibility Guidelines

Best practices for publication-quality scientific diagrams.

Colour and Accessibility

Colorblind-safe palettes:

  • Use Okabe-Ito palette (8 colours, safe for all colour-vision deficiencies)
  • Avoid red/green combinations as the primary distinguishing factor
  • ALWAYS add patterns, shapes, or labels as secondary encoding — never rely on colour alone

Contrast ratios:

  • Minimum 4.5:1 for text on backgrounds (WCAG AA)
  • Minimum 3:1 for graphical elements

Typography

Font recommendations:

  • Body labels: sans-serif (Arial, Helvetica, or Liberation Sans), minimum 8pt for journal
  • Title labels: 10–12pt
  • NEVER use decorative or script fonts in scientific figures

Label placement:

  • Labels must not overlap arrows or element boundaries
  • Abbreviations must be defined in the figure caption or a legend

Layout and Composition

Whitespace:

  • Allow at least 10% margin around diagram content
  • Group related elements with visual proximity, not just colour

Arrows and connectors:

  • Use arrowheads consistently: filled for activation, bar-ended for inhibition (biological conventions)
  • NEVER mix arrow styles without a legend

File Format and Resolution

For journal submission:

  • Vector formats preferred: SVG, EPS, PDF
  • Raster fallback: 300 DPI minimum at final print size
  • TIFF or PNG for raster; NEVER JPEG (compression artefacts at print resolution)

For conference/poster:

  • 150 DPI acceptable for large-format printing
  • Embed all fonts in PDF export

Figure Caption Standards

A complete caption answers: what is shown, what the abbreviations mean, what the scale or units are, and (for data plots) what error bars represent.

Template: "Figure N. [One-sentence description of what is shown]. [Abbreviation definitions.] [Scale/unit notes.] [Error bar definition if applicable.]"

Integration with Papers

  • Reference every figure in the main text before it appears
  • Store all figures in figures/ subdirectory
  • Use relative paths in LaTeX/Markdown: figures/consort-flowchart.png
  • NEVER embed figures as base64 in source files
Edit this page on GitHub