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Create a Custom Theme

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# Load Packages -----------------------------------------------------------

library(tidyverse)
library(fs)
library(scales)
library(ggrepel)
library(ggtext)

# Create Directory --------------------------------------------------------

dir_create("data")

# Download Data -----------------------------------------------------------

# download.file("https://github.com/rfortherestofus/going-deeper-v2/raw/main/data/third_grade_math_proficiency.rds",
#               mode = "wb",
#               destfile = "data/third_grade_math_proficiency.rds")

# Import Data -------------------------------------------------------------

third_grade_math_proficiency <- 
  read_rds("data/third_grade_math_proficiency.rds") |> 
  select(academic_year, school, school_id, district, proficiency_level, number_of_students) |> 
  mutate(is_proficient = case_when(
    proficiency_level >= 3 ~ TRUE,
    .default = FALSE
  )) |> 
  group_by(academic_year, school, district, school_id, is_proficient) |> 
  summarize(number_of_students = sum(number_of_students, na.rm = TRUE)) |> 
  ungroup() |> 
  group_by(academic_year, school, district, school_id) |> 
  mutate(percent_proficient = number_of_students / sum(number_of_students, na.rm = TRUE)) |> 
  ungroup() |> 
  filter(is_proficient == TRUE) |> 
  select(academic_year, school, district, percent_proficient) |> 
  rename(year = academic_year) |> 
  mutate(percent_proficient = case_when(
    is.nan(percent_proficient) ~ NA,
    .default = percent_proficient
  )) |> 
  mutate(percent_proficient_formatted = percent(percent_proficient,
                                                accuracy = 1))


# Theme -------------------------------------------------------------------

theme_dk <- function() {
  
  theme_minimal() +
    theme(axis.title = element_blank(),
          plot.title = element_markdown(),
          plot.title.position = "plot",
          panel.grid = element_blank(),
          axis.text = element_text(color = "grey60",
                                   size = 10),
          legend.position = "none")
  
}

# Plot --------------------------------------------------------------------

top_growth_school <- 
  third_grade_math_proficiency |>
  filter(district == "Portland SD 1J") |> 
  group_by(school) |> 
  mutate(growth_from_previous_year = percent_proficient - lag(percent_proficient)) |> 
  ungroup() |> 
  drop_na(growth_from_previous_year) |>
  slice_max(order_by = growth_from_previous_year,
            n = 1) |> 
  pull(school)

third_grade_math_proficiency |>
  filter(district == "Portland SD 1J") |>
  mutate(highlight_school = case_when(
    school == top_growth_school ~ "Y",
    .default = "N"
  )) |> 
  mutate(percent_proficient_formatted = case_when(
    highlight_school == "Y" & year == "2021-2022" ~ str_glue("{percent_proficient_formatted} of students
                                                             were proficient
                                                             in {year}"),
    highlight_school == "Y" & year == "2018-2019" ~ percent_proficient_formatted,
    .default = NA
  )) |> 
  mutate(school = fct_relevel(school, top_growth_school, after = Inf)) |>
  ggplot(aes(x = year,
             y = percent_proficient,
             group = school,
             color = highlight_school,
             label = percent_proficient_formatted)) +
  geom_line() +
  geom_text_repel(hjust = 0,
                  lineheight = 0.9,
                  direction = "x") +
  scale_color_manual(values = c(
    "N" = "grey90",
    "Y" = "orange"
  )) +
  scale_y_continuous(labels = percent_format()) +
  scale_x_discrete(expand = expansion(add = c(0.05, 0.5))) +
  annotate(geom = "text",
           x = 2.02,
           y = 0.6,
           hjust = 0,
           lineheight = 0.9,
           color = "grey70",
           label = str_glue("Each grey line
                            represents one school")) +
  labs(title = str_glue("<b style='color: orange;'>{top_growth_school}</b> showed large growth in math proficiency over the last two years")) +
  theme_dk()

Your Turn

  1. Make your own custom theme and apply it to your plot.

  2. If you want to confirm that it works with other plots, copy it to another project and try it there.

Learn More

If you want to see a bunch of complete themes ready for your use, I've written a blog post that may be of interest to you. If you want to dive deep on creating custom themes, Andrew Heiss has some great materials here. This talk by Cara Thompson is also great.

If you have trouble, as I do, remembering the various theme elements, this blog post from Henry Wang has a nice overview to help you.

ggplot2 Theme Elements Demonstration.

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

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