Theming & fonts • ggsketch

The sketchiness of the marks comes from the geoms. theme_sketch() styles the surrounding frame — typography, gridlines, background — with a muted palette to match.

Light and dark presets

sales <- data.frame(product = c("Alpha", "Bravo", "Charlie", "Delta"),
                    units   = c(34, 51, 22, 47))

ggplot(sales, aes(product, units, fill = product)) +
  geom_sketch_col(seed = 1L, show.legend = FALSE) +
  scale_fill_brewer(palette = "Set2") +
  labs(title = "Light (paper) preset", x = NULL) +
  theme_sketch()

ggplot(sales, aes(product, units, fill = product)) +
  geom_sketch_col(colour = "grey85", seed = 1L, show.legend = FALSE) +
  scale_fill_brewer(palette = "Set2") +
  labs(title = "Dark (chalkboard) preset", x = NULL) +
  theme_sketch(dark = TRUE)

On a dark background, give the geoms a light outline colour (e.g. "grey85") so the rough strokes read clearly.

Base size and the rest of the grammar

theme_sketch() is a normal ggplot2 theme — combine and override freely.

ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg)) +
  geom_sketch_point(size = 3, seed = 1L) +
  labs(title = "Bigger base text", subtitle = "theme_sketch(base_size = 15)") +
  theme_sketch(base_size = 15) +
  theme(panel.grid.minor = element_blank())

Handwriting fonts (optional)

The look does not depend on fonts, but a handwriting face for the text adds to it. Pass a family name to base_family, or use "auto" to pick the first installed handwriting font (falling back to the device default if none are found).

What they look like

A few handwriting faces that pair well with the geoms — Google Fonts like Caveat, Permanent Marker, and Indie Flower, plus the handwriting fonts that ship with Windows and macOS (Segoe Print, Ink Free, Bradley Hand, Chalkboard, Comic Sans MS). The specimen below renders whichever of those are installed on the build machine.

No handwriting fonts were found on the build machine, so the specimen is skipped. Install one of the faces above (or register one — see below) to see it here.

Using one

Pass base_family = "auto" to style the whole theme with the first installed handwriting font; geom_sketch_text() picks it up the same way.

ggplot(sales, aes(product, units)) +
  geom_sketch_col(fill = "#7BAFD4", seed = 1L) +
  geom_sketch_text(aes(label = units), nudge_y = 2.5, size = 6) +
  labs(title = "base_family = \"auto\"", x = NULL) +
  theme_sketch(base_family = "auto")

Check what is available on your machine:

ggsketch_check_fonts()
#> Available handwriting fonts:
#>   Caveat

Reproducible fonts

To get the same face on any machine or CI runner — without relying on a system install — download a font once (e.g. Caveat from Google Fonts) and register it with register_sketch_font(), then render with a font-aware device (ragg, svglite, cairo):

register_sketch_font("Caveat", "~/fonts/Caveat-Regular.ttf")

ggplot(sales, aes(product, units)) +
  geom_sketch_col(fill = "#7BAFD4", seed = 1L) +
  geom_sketch_text(aes(label = units), family = "Caveat", nudge_y = 2.5, size = 6) +
  labs(title = "Registered font", x = NULL) +
  theme_sketch(base_family = "Caveat")

ggsketch_check_fonts() and register_sketch_font() need the optional systemfonts package; without it (or without any handwriting font), everything still renders with the device default — ggsketch never makes fonts a hard dependency.