Figures (master method)

Follow figure-guide.md in this folder, the complete plain-English method. This file is the operating summary.

Process

1. Name the one job in a sentence. Write the claim the figure discharges before drawing anything: "rejecting low-confidence items raises bin purity." A figure with no nameable claim is decoration; delete it or turn it into a sentence. One figure, one job; a second claim earns a second panel.
2. Pick the form from the question. Comparison takes bars or dots sorted by value. Distribution takes a histogram or ECDF. Relationship takes a scatter, or a line when x is ordered. Composition takes a stacked bar with a meaningful total. Flow and architecture take a diagram. Under about twenty numbers that readers will quote, a table wins.
3. Size the canvas to the column before drawing. NeurIPS and ICLR give a 5.5 in wide text block; ICML gives two 3.25 in columns inside a 6.75 in block. Build at that exact width so \includegraphics scales by 1.0. Every rescale multiplies the type size by the same factor.
4. Diagram track, author in Figma. One frame per figure, width in pixels set to inches times 72 (5.5 in is 396 px, 3.25 in is 234 px). Snap to an 8 px grid, make repeated blocks components, use auto layout for padding, and bind color and text styles so the figure family stays consistent. Name every layer, and export PDF at 1x.
5. Plot track, author in matplotlib. Set figure.figsize to the column width in inches and pdf.fonttype to 42 (the default 3 is rejected by some venues). Match the paper's serif family, keep line widths at or above 0.5 pt, drop the top and right spines, and save to PDF.
6. Set type at final printed size. Figure text is never smaller than the caption text, which is 9 pt at ICML. Labels carry data only: axis quantity, unit, category name. Model names, hedges, and qualifiers belong in the caption, not on the canvas.
7. Encode every series twice. Color plus line style plus marker, drawn from the Okabe-Ito set, so the reading survives grayscale printing and color vision deficiency. Convert the figure to gray and read it before shipping.
8. Export vector, then verify the file. pdfinfo must report the page size you designed (3.25 in reads as 234 pts). pdffonts must show every font embedded and no Type 3. Raster only for photographs and pixel grids, at 300 dpi or better.
9. Place it and hand off the caption. Include at \columnwidth or \linewidth with no scale factor, put the figure at the top of a page or column, then write the caption with the caption-writing skill. The figure and its caption ship as one exhibit.
10. Run the mechanical checklist. Vector, fonts embedded, no rescale, axis labels with units, legend not repeating the caption, every mark decoded somewhere, grayscale legible, axes not truncated without a stated reason.

Core rules

• One figure discharges one claim. Name the claim first, in words, then draw.
• Build at the final printed width. A figure that gets rescaled has the wrong font size by definition.
• Figure text is never smaller than the caption text (ICML accessibility rule); if 9 pt labels collide, remove content or widen the figure, never shrink type.
• Figure text carries data only: quantities, units, category names. No model names, no qualifiers, no claims on the canvas.
• Color never carries information alone. Every series gets a line style and a marker too, and the figure survives a grayscale conversion.
• Reject jet and rainbow colormaps: they impose gradients the data lacks. Sequential data takes viridis, diverging data takes a two-hue map, categorical data takes Okabe-Ito.
• Vector for anything drawn (PDF), raster only for photographs and pixel grids.
• Do not trust plotting defaults: matplotlib ships a 6.4 by 4.8 in canvas and Type 3 fonts, both wrong for a paper.
• Every axis states its quantity and unit. Every mark on the canvas is decoded in the legend or the caption, exactly once, never in both.
• Truncated axes, pie charts, and 3D effects on 2D data mislead. Show the full range or state the truncation in the caption.
• Prose axioms for all figure and caption text: sentences <= ~28 words, zero "can"/"could", no bare This/These, no em dashes, numbers glued to objects.

Reference file

• figure-guide.md: full guide: term translations, the one-job rule, the form heuristic and the table-versus-plot test, the Figma diagram track (frame sizing, 8 px grid, components, styles, alignment discipline, export traps), the matplotlib plot track with a publication rcParams block, typography and size, the color system, the pre-submission mechanical checklist, a worked example from claim to shipped PDF on a toy system, and the handoff to caption-writing. Every venue number is attributed to its source with a URL.