Figures are an important part of any publication. They are often the first thing readers look at and will help usually are the deciders as to whether non-specialists are going to read on…a good figure goes a long way! If you can spend the time it is well worth it (within reason of course). A good read on some do and don’ts for figures by Rougier et al. 2014 PLOS comp biol, while your at it check out this one by Mensh and Kording 2017.
I don’t see the need to reinvent the wheel so see some useful pages:
Handy links for colour
One of my favourite colour palettes at the moment is Viridis
install.packages("viridis")
library(viridis)Usage of this palette with various ggplots here
Work by Siobhon Egan
siobhon.egan@murdoch.edu.au