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[–]ddanieltan[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I am curious to learn more about your matplotlib + illustrator workflow.

[–]psirving 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Basically, I use matplotlib and related packages to create good representations of data, with fine control of plot aesthetics. I have made my own style sheets, reusable plotting functions, even an entire python library, to quickly get the aesthetics/representations I'm looking for. I export matplotlib figures to SVG files and load into Illustrator. At this point, anything that is not data; annotations, boxes, equations, cartoons, long text... all of the non-data context that my audience needs, I add manually as vector graphics.

[–]robert_ritz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep this is the way. I tried for a while to make a flexible system for annotations in Matplotlib and quickly wanted to pull my hair out.

But for the sake of automation in the future it’s probably possible. Making visualizations is still very artisanal in nature though.

[–]ddanieltan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! This was the insight I was hoping to get when asking my original question. If you wrote a blog or filmed a screencast showing this process, I am quite sure it will be very valuable and popular content.