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Data Visualisation Guide

Natural aspect ratios

2 minutes read

Size and aspect ratio

Certain chart types tend to grow to a wide layout, while others will quickly evolve to a tall layout.

Bar charts with vertical bars will tend to be wider than high, unless they show only a couple of values. Horizontal bar charts grow in the vertical direction, and have a tendency to be higher than wide.

A vertical bar chart with 16 bars, creating a layout that is wider than it is high

Source: Maarten Lambrechts, CC BY 4.0

Another example of an inherent aspect ratio is the high layout of slope charts. Slope charts are line charts that show values for only 2 moments in time, so they require only a limited horizontal space. They do need enough vertical space to show the evolution between the 2 moments in time, especially when they contain a lot of time series.

A slopechart with 3 lines higlighted in colour and labelled with Sweden, EU and Ireland

Source: Maarten Lambrechts, CC BY 4.0

And of course, a pie chart is a circle and will occupy a more or less square space in a grid based design (see the page about the grid.

A pie chart with 5 slices

Source: Maarten Lambrechts, CC BY 4.0

So if you know the dimensions and the aspect ratio of the space assigned to a visualisation in a publication, this can help you in choosing a chart type that fits the aspect ratio of the available space.

Of course the reverse is more ideal: choose a chart type that fits best the data and the message you want to convey, and reserve a space in your design that has an aspect ratio that fits the chosen visualisation.

Related pages

Scaling charts

Line chart aspect ratios

Chart anatomy

Visual hierarchy: sizing

Arrangement and reading direction

Visual hierarchy: colour

Size and aspect ratio