Column Charts

Column charts are fantastic at showcasing one or more categories of items over time. In contrast to the line or time series plot, they excel at offering a clearer visual of variable changes through fill intensity. In the example below, I showcase the implementation of a column plot, leveraging the random normal distribution across a 24-interval period.

library(ggplot2)
library(ggthemes)

data = data.frame( Year = seq(2000, 2023, length.out = 24),
                   value = rnorm( n = 24, mean = 50, sd = 21 ))

head(data)

	Year	value
1	2000	16.17888
2	2001	44.70431
3	2002	65.62167
4	2003	33.82868
5	2004	52.25220
6	2005	75.38828

Implementation of Column Chart with geom_col()

Using the fill `value` helps generate an intensity marker that can easily make significant changes more visible to the user. See the example below:

column_chart = ggplot( data = data, aes( x = Year, y = value, fill=value ) ) +
               geom_col() +
               ggtitle("Time Series Sample: Value from rnorm(24, 50, 21)") +
               theme_classic()

column_chart