Built-In Themes in ggplot2

Introduction to themes in ggplot2

A theme for data visualization refers to the overall visual style and appearance applied to a plot or graph. Applying a theme does not impact the way data is displayed by geoms or transformed by scales. While themes don’t alter the visual properties of the plot, they do help us enhance its aesthetics, readability, and clarity. We can use themes to control various aspects of the plot’s appearance.

The ggplot2 package in R offers various themes that are useful for improving the look of data visualizations. The ggplot2 theme system allows us to customize the non-data elements of the plot, such as fonts, ticks, labels, and backgrounds.

While creating plots using the base graphics package, we have to provide many arguments for the appearance of data and non-data elements in their functions, making them difficult to use. The ggplot2 package offers a better approach when creating a plot. Here, we need to determine the data to be used and then use the theming system afterward. It makes ggplot2 easier to learn and use than other graphics systems.