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Alignment, white space, and layout of multiple plots examples and exercises

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Your Turn

You can either use your own charts or the charts provided in the code below (also available in this file).

library(tidyverse)

plastics <- readr::read_csv('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rfordatascience/tidytuesday/master/data/2021/2021-01-26/plastics.csv')

bar_chart <- 
  plastics %>%
  group_by(parent_company) %>%
  summarize(total = sum(grand_total, na.rm = TRUE)) %>%
  arrange(desc(total)) %>%
  slice(4:14) %>%
  mutate(parent_company = ifelse(parent_company == "NULL", "Unknown", parent_company)) %>%
  ggplot() +
    geom_col(aes(x = total, y = reorder(parent_company, total)), fill = "orchid4") +
    theme_light() +
    labs(title = "Top brands") +
    theme(axis.title = element_blank(), panel.border = element_blank(),
          panel.grid.minor.x = element_blank(),
          panel.grid.major.y = element_blank(),
          plot.title.position = "plot")

pie_chart <- 
  plastics %>%
  group_by(year) %>%
  summarize(total = sum(grand_total, na.rm = TRUE)) %>%
  ggplot() +
  geom_bar(aes(x = "", y = total, fill = as.character(year)), stat = "identity", width = 1) +
  coord_polar("y", start = 0) +
  theme_minimal() +
  labs(title = "Plastic pollution by year", fill = "") +
  theme(axis.title = element_blank(), panel.grid = element_blank(),
        axis.text = element_blank())

bar_chart_2 <- 
  plastics %>%
  select(hdpe:pvc) %>%
  pivot_longer(cols = 1:7) %>%
  group_by(name) %>%
  summarize(total = sum(value, na.rm = TRUE)) %>%
  ggplot() +
  geom_col(aes(x = total, y = reorder(name, total)), fill = "goldenrod") +
  theme_light() +
  labs(title = "By plastic type") +
  theme(axis.title = element_blank(), panel.border = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.minor.x = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major.y = element_blank(), 
        plot.title.position = "plot")
  
    

  1. Create a patchwork with one chart in a lefthand column spanning two vertical rows, and two charts in a second column stacked on top of each other.

  2. Take the patchwork you just created, and add a title, subtitle, and figure labels

  3. Make the figure labels read “Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3”

  4. Use theme options to make the figure labels a little smaller

Have any questions? Put them below and we will help you out!

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Cedric Vidonne

Cedric Vidonne

January 11, 2023

FYI the link to the download the lesson slides is broken as well as the 2nd video that appears to be private.

Deepak Varughese

Deepak Varughese

January 29, 2023

Hi Wlll. Great session. Had a question How do I get rd of the 2e+05 etc on the x axis?