Getting started with ggsketch

A first plot

geom_sketch_col() draws bars with a roughened outline and a hachure (pencil-shading) fill:

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

ggplot(df, aes(product, units)) +
  geom_sketch_col(fill = "#7BAFD4", seed = 1L) +
  labs(title = "Units sold") +
  theme_sketch()

Reproducible wobble

The sketch look is random, but seeded — a given seed always produces the same drawing, so your figures are reproducible. Change the seed for a fresh “hand”.

base <- ggplot(df, aes(product, units)) + theme_sketch()
base + geom_sketch_col(seed = 1L) + labs(subtitle = "seed = 1")

base + geom_sketch_col(seed = 7L) + labs(subtitle = "seed = 7")

Set a session-wide default with options(ggsketch.seed = 1L).

The roughness dial

roughness controls how far points are displaced (0 = ruler-straight):

x <- seq(0, 10, length.out = 40)
d <- data.frame(x = x, y = sin(x))

ggplot(d, aes(x, y)) +
  geom_sketch_line(aes(colour = "0.0"), roughness = 0,   seed = 2) +
  geom_sketch_line(aes(colour = "1.5"), roughness = 1.5, seed = 2) +
  geom_sketch_line(aes(colour = "4.0"), roughness = 4,   seed = 2) +
  scale_colour_brewer("roughness", palette = "Set1") +
  theme_sketch()

Fill styles

Filled geoms (geom_sketch_col(), geom_sketch_rect(), geom_sketch_polygon(), …) take a fill_style:

fill_style is a layer parameter, so to show several you draw one layer (or panel) per style. Here is cross_hatch:

bars <- data.frame(x = c("A", "B", "C"), y = c(4, 6, 3))
ggplot(bars, aes(x, y)) +
  geom_sketch_col(fill = "#E8A87C", fill_style = "cross_hatch", seed = 4) +
  labs(title = "cross_hatch") +
  theme_sketch()

The available styles are "hachure", "cross_hatch", "zigzag", "zigzag_line", "scribble", "dots", "dashed", and "solid" — plus a painted "watercolor" wash.

Composing like any ggplot2 layer

Sketch geoms respect facets, scales, and coords:

ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg)) +
  geom_sketch_point(size = 2.5, colour = "#34495E", seed = 9) +
  geom_sketch_smooth(method = "lm", formula = y ~ x, seed = 10) +
  facet_wrap(~am, labeller = label_both) +
  theme_sketch()

Annotations and a dark theme

ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg)) +
  geom_sketch_point(colour = "#E8E6DF", seed = 1L) +
  annotate_sketch("rect", xmin = 3, xmax = 4, ymin = 15, ymax = 22,
                  fill = NA, colour = "#FFD166", seed = 2L) +
  theme_sketch(dark = TRUE)

Beyond the basics

ggsketch covers far more than bars and lines: distribution geoms (violin, ridgeline, beeswarm, boxplot), part-to-whole charts (pie, waffle, treemap), streamgraphs, calendar heatmaps, an engraving / tonal-shading family, and a content-aware annotation toolkit (arrows, callouts, brackets, hull marks). The drawing look extends too — pencil / ink / brush / charcoal media, watercolour fills, textured paper grounds, and hand-drawn coords. The gallery shows every geom; the other articles cover fill styles, theming, and the shared sketch controls in depth.

Where the look comes from

ggsketch is built in three layers: pure geometry (numbers → numbers), grid grobs that roughen in device-inch space inside makeContent(), and ggproto geoms. The algorithms are reimplemented in original R from the published descriptions of the rough.js algorithms and the hachure approach of Wood et al.; no rough.js source is included. See inst/NOTICE.