Avoid full sentences. Bring labels as close to what they are labeling.

Draw the least number of elements to make your point and no more than that.

This arrow asks the eye to backtrack.

The role of the arrow between panels is ambiguous. Does it say "look here" or does it indicate that Z99γ interacts with Dvl2/NumA1 complex? This arrow is reused further on.

None of the colors communicate important information. Some colors are recycled yet mean different things (Wnt7a and phosphate is yellow). Most of the shapes are unnecessarily elaborate.

Too much detail showing aspects of the spindle apparatus. Meanwhile, the concept of "orienting" is missing.

Avoid vertical elements and vertical labels.

Blue is used to emphasize important elements. Note that there are no "look here" arrows — all arrows indicate movement.

In keeping with the original design, titles of each section explain what is happening and together form a full sentence.

The fact that the spindle apparatus is oriented is emphasized. The horizontal axis of symmetry is blue because it's an important part of the theme.

You can choose to draw a before (one cell) and after (two cells), or just the after. Note how the single cell and pair are aligned to the vertical axis (middle of Dvl2) running down the middle of the abstract.

Don't draw more than one element when a multitude is expressly implied. The change in scale between components of the nanoparticle and the nanoparticle itself is unnecessary.

We're asked to look back up and to the left for more detail of what is happening upstream of the injury but simultaneously by a neighbouring arrow asked to look down and right. Avoid such eye traffic collisions.

Use a single arrow style throughout. Why is this arrow large, blue and with a dashed body?

Find and eliminate all sources of business, such as this maze of crop lines of various styles. None of the images are aligned to any reasonable axis.

Place labels where they belong. While both are describing what is happening inside the spinal cord, the PTEN label belongs inside while the axon label belongs closer to the neurons below.

There is no need to redraw the injury with a spiky blob, especially when the injury is originally represented by a notch.

Draw only one of each actor. It's obvious that we're not using only one of each phospholipd and that we're making more than one nanoparticle.

Don't overdraw a process. Rigid alignment and the "encapsulation" label makes it extremely clear what is happening, without having to draw any equipment associated with this step. Experimental procedures are italicized.

Draw complex structures with as little detail as possible that allows you to tell the story. Reuse symbols at the same scale as previously drawn — both siRNA and phospholipids are drawn at the same size.

Annotate away from the main eye path. Although it's relatively clear that the small circles represent the nanoparticle, placing one of them above the "lipid nanoparticle" label acts as a legend and removes all doubt.

The axis of the injury is emphasized with a dashed line. This isn't strictly necessary — alignment in the design is robust and removing this line does not introduce ambiguity.

The reason why individual neurons are drawn is to draw attention to the truncation (and regeneration) of the axons, which shows up more clearly when axons are parallel and neuron cell bodies are symmetrically arranged.

There are no other arrows in the design, so these arrows unambiguously communicate "decrease" and "increase". Never color the arrows to indicate their direction — the arrow head does this for you already.

Place labels, such as "axonal regenreation" as close to the action (e.g. where the regeneration is happening as possible). In fact, you could argue that the up arrow here is not necessary, since in the previous panel there was no regeneration.

The size of this label is the same as for category (cord blood, adult) labels. But it's role is much more important — it's actually the key text in the abstract.

Avoid dark text on dark colors. The lack of contrast decreases legibility.

Avoid unnecessary capitalization and place labels consistently. Here, cord blood and adult labels are on the right of the circle, but elsewhere they are on the left of the cell phase bars.

Avoid separating elements that are to be compared. The phase labels do not belong between the bars, but before — in a tabular context, their job is that of a column header, which should come first.

It's not clear what "no division" means here, especially since there is a "division" label at the end of the bar. There's also no need for an elaborate arrow.

Don't abbreviate words (e.g. stimulation as stim) if you have the space for the full form.

All category labels "cord blood" and "adult" are right aligned to the same axis.

Splitting the circle with a white line helps to separate the two halves. Where possible, use space (white) not ink (e.g. black) to divide and distinguish.

The cell phase labels are shown only once.

The process of division is embedded in the design. If the bar represents a cell, then cell division is a split of the bar. The "division" label is not repeated.

If the low/adult bar does not end in division, draw attention to this at the beginning. The arrow is not strictly necessary, since we already expect division to be downstream of the start of the bar.

Avoid vertical text at all cost.

Use space to establish grouping. In this part of the plot the horizontal divider between plots, which uncannily looks like the axis below the bottom plot, runs parallel to the astrocyte plot on top (red) and the Ssh signal trace (blue) and this congestion of lines makes it hard on the eye to lock onto the baseline of each plot.

It's unclear whether the difference in how the red trace increases (power law in the wildtype and sigmoidal in the knockout) is important or unintended.

It's not necessary to repeat "day".

Never use arrow thickness to encode rate or magnitude. The arrows in this cell division representation are also ambiguous. It's more natural to interpet arrow thickness as a rate (but don't do it!) than to see it as a statement of the number of cells at the end of the timeline. Or do the arrows actually indicate a rate of differentiation on day 17?

Track labels do not need to be repeated for both scenarios.

Find a way to make your axes visible but subtle. Offset it from the data but not too far.

I've added headroom to each track to maintain visibility of the light background in the knockout Ssh signal, which is constant across time.

This part isn't necessary, but I've left it to indicate how the original can be rescued with a more quantitative representation. But I'm not crazy about it, so in the supplementary designs below I remove it.

This clipart immediately suggests that the abstract has something to do with running or exercise. The clipart is superfluous but also vexing — the eye will naturally want to try to follow the direction of motion of the runner, which takes it out of the frame.

Do we care what a healthy prostate looks like? If we do, what has this graphic told us? That it looks like a walnut. Does this help? Also, avoid elaborate zoom crop lines.

Why is this arrow dashed?

This vertical divider unnecessarily tries to separate elements that belong together. If anything, it actually should be a horizontal divider. Notice how the molecular events on the right also have a tiny prostate graphic next to them, which is so tiny that it blends into the scene as just another molecule.

Manage line breaks at ends of phrases and natural pauses. Avoid having single stop words (prepositions, conjunctions, etc) on one line.

Why is this arrow green?

Don't indicate absence of molecules by drawing them and then putting an X over them. In this case, the X is green, which isn't the most natural color to say "doesn't happen".

How many A's are needed in a poly-A tail? I'd say 3 or 4, but not more. Always use the fewest number of elements to make your point. Always draw attention to the important parts of the graphic — this is why the ribosomes are bright yellow (black outline helps separate them from the background) and the RNA molecule is greatly simplified (and not at an angle).

Lots of room left for annotations.

Dark grey arrows do the job and are less jarring than black ones. Here I've made the arrows follow the shape of a circle to break up the rectilinear layout.

The "resistant to therapy" label is placed at the bottom to avoid having elements between the RNA diagrams, which is what we are comparing. Anytime you place something between things that are meant to be compared, you frustrate the reader (and they may not even know it).

Elaborate embryo and mouse clipart is unnecessary. Also note that both face to the left, which might lead the eye to the heart dissection step, but this orientation makes an unintuitive ask: look in the top center and then move left.

The knife and dashed line here is not necessary.

The cells in the cell capture pipeline are not drawn in the same way as in the preceeding step. The pipeline is also unnecessarily long and the introduction of "enzyme beads" and "oil" from the bottom is less intuitive than from the top.

Avoid clipart of obvious equipment.

When drawing data plots, ask yourself whether you really need the axes. In this case, the point to be made is that t-SNE clustering is being applied — axes are not necessary to make this point.

Don't color text. Place it next to what it's labeling instead.

The turn at the start of the line, completely discretionary, nicely emphasizes the concept of "start".

Continuity between steps is maintained by following the cell path from the cell cluster at "single cell dissociation" all the way into the sequencer. Note the change in color of the cell capture pipeline — yellow to intuitively indicate "oil".

A dashed line out of the frame (and into it, below) cues that the line continues.

I've placed the clustering as a separate step. This more naturally accomodates the t-SNE plot, which now has its own "station" on the line. Always be on the lookout for opportunities like this. Notice how som elabels have a lighter gray text that indicates the technology (or algorithm) applied in the step.

Don't use outlines to highlight clusters. Instead, use a light fill tracing the shape of the cluster.

Smaller italic labels indicate that these are subbordinate to all other labels.

End the protocol at its natural conclusion — confirmation of a hypothesis or key observations. Don't just dangle "experimental validation" at the end without a follow up: how many candiates were validated, what was the outcome of the validation and what did you learn?

This red transport arrow is too heavy and too long. Look how far insulin is from ABC.

The red arrow here encodes a decrease in expression, but it's right next to a nearly identical arrow that indicates transport. Never draw the same thing to mean very different things, just as you wouldn't use three homonyms in a row (what does "set set set" mean?).

Make crop lines (or shapes) as short as possible without loss of clarity.

Explain what you mean and avoid elaborate twisting arrows.

The meaning of these red arrows is totally opaque?

Why is the increase PPARγ label on the cellular membrane? Is this accidental or purposeful?

No Comic Sans ever.

How is "differentiation" used? What is being said? That we have more white fat cells at the end or that we have more differentiation at the end (white/brown fat).

Since ABC is important, using color here helps set this theme.

Because arrows are already used for transport, the arrow for decrease in expression is drawn differently. Use of color for decrease (and later, increase) is discretionary and works only if color elsewhere is tightly controlled.

Clearly indicate which area is being magnified.

Match colors of magnified areas to those introduced in the zoomed-out graphic. If multiple membranes are drawn, draw them in the same way. You're not going for realism here.

Specify which compound is being transported out of the cell. Here, I've assumed it's peroxide. Note how both ROS events point towards the middle vertical axis. Peroxide is repeated at the bottom to remind the reader what is being transported. Doing it makes each "scene" in the narrative more modular. And if you start at the bottom of the graphic and look up, you don't need to go all the way to the middle to understand what is being transported.

This arrow crosses two membranes and a compartment. It's an important part of the story and gets us out of the mitochondria through the cell and out of it.

Glucose is uncomfortably squished between the title and membrane. Give it space to clearly announce the input to the process.

Orange is used to color the zoomed-out snapshot of the PKM compounds but none of the compounds are actually orange.

FBP gets its own color, but is it necessary?

The inside of the mitochondria and nucleus is established well but why with blue? Stick to light/dark grey for outside/inside, unless you have an excellent reason to introduce hue.

The labels are too bold for the capture brackets, which are thin and brittle. Avoid brackets to indicate a region — they're too ornate. Also notice the double use of these brackets: one is used for a zoom (PKM compounds) but others are used to delineate a region.

The membrane lines are very close to the "primed" capture bracket lines. Avoid this kind of collision and find a way to resolve it — does the membrane need to extend this far right in the graphic, or could it end at the right end of the nucleus?

Avoid legends, which is often possible when only a couple of items are being listed. Instead, incorporate the labels into the plot directly next to their elements.

These arrows mean "look here" but why so thick? And are they needed, given that they're just telling you to look down along the direction of the axis?

Light compartment labels follow the shape of the membrane. This blends these labels into the background and makes them almost invisible, unless you look for them. This is the point — they're not that important so don't make them too bold.

The classification labels are offset from the molecular vignette. Brackets are used instead of braces — they're simpler and do the job.

FBP gets a soft brown color, but could just as well have been grey. Note how the zoomed-out view of the PKM complexes shows a small version of the zoomed-in view, but without labels. Doing this avoids the need for crop lines that say "this is being magnified".

Pathway lines don't always need arrows.

This plot trades in straight lines for curves. This avoids a pointy "V" at step 2, which doesn't represent how quantities change in an actual cell (all rates have continuous derivatives).

The red glowing circle on the Fallopian tube is too small.

This is the wrong arrow end. It suggests inhibition, but as far as I can tell what is meant is that PODO447 does not bind.

The curvature in the podocalyxin chain isn't necessary. The scene actually seems to be tipping to the right. Similarly, the membrane doesn't need to be curved.

The design can be made without crop lines. But if such lines must be drawn, make them as light as possible without losing them.

No legends. Incorporate labels close to their elements. Legends squished into the graphic are an indication that the space is full — back up and rework the layout.

The open form (extend beyond edge) of the cells is a good choice here, but the cells are too elaborate and the small versions of the scene don't actually reflect their magnified form.

There's plenty of room for labeling the condition. The "healthy" label immediately cues the reader that the theme is health vs. disease.

A much larger cue to localize the scene within the reproductive system. The same red color is then used to communicate the difference between the panels.

I've made PODO447 bright yellow to make it the most salient element in the graphic. Note how the PODO447 on the left (not binding) and the one on the right (bound) are aligned horizontally. Not an accident.

One of the N-acetylgalactosamines is drawn slightly away from the others to indicate unambiguously what is being labeled. Essentially, this is a kind of legend built up from the parts of the graphic itself.

I've kept the open form for the cells but drew them more simply and with regular spacing. The cells in the disease state are slightly distressed, but only subtly. The key element here is how the miniature scene is drawn, particularly in the diseased state on the right.

The vertical split down the middle muddles the story. Top-level organization of elements is critical — a bad choice at this step cannot be rescued by great design decisions downstream.

The arrows are horrible. The arrows on the left and right are actually identical, but notice how the arrows to TSS are not symmetrical. This is due to the layout: identical positions (TSS) on identical elements (active gene) are at different distances from the middle. The arrows start weakly with a gradient — both ends of the arrow are important and should be presented with equal weight.

Do not draw tiny important elements (TSS) but large unimportant elements (axis break in active gene). There is no good reason why the TSS element is so thin (or so short, given that the diagram is an illustration and not to scale).

Why is the TFBS element purple? And is this important? We'll never know.

This gradient does not serve a functional purpose. If the meaning is "a cloud of factors that influence H3.3 enhancement" then this is implied by position. If its purpose is to draw the eye, it's unnecessary since the eye will naturally look to the center in this layout.

What are these dashed lines? The best I can guess is that the height of the rectangle indicates the amount of H3.3 enrichment, but this amount is not directly measured in the telomere in the same way as in gene regions. Is the transcription arrow in the telomere key to the story?

This red arrow is meant to indicate increased expression of TERRA. But this is the same red arrow as the "look here" arrow on the left — the same graphical element should not be recycled with a different meaning.

Both the arrow and TERRA label are so close to the green rectangle that it implies that the rectangle itself is growing and that the rectangle is actually encoding the TERRA level, which isn't the case. There are two separate things happening here: Hira-independent localization of H3.3 at telomeres and represesion of TERRA, both of which are reduced in absence of ATRX.

In the original it's ambiguous what aspect of H3.3 is being illustrated, which can be resolved by explicitly including "enrichment" in the title. The "HIRA-dependent" subtitle for the first scenario sets up the top-level organization.

The H3.3 enrichment at TFBS is under the additional influence of an uncharacterized protein, which does not influence H3.3 at TSS or TES. This is somewhat clear in the original but muddled in Cell's redesign. By drawing three branches from HIRA, I can add stimulatory or inhibitory influences to each branch in a natural way.

The "represeed" and "active" genes are drawn as data tracks, on a single genomic axis (there is no reason to break the TFBS into a separate axis like in the original). Both an axis break can be indicated with a double diagonal line (but subtly!) or a dotted line. Note that in Cell's redesign the "active gene" and "repressed gene" labels have different size — while the repressed case might be less important than the active case, they're labeling the same variable (is it active? yes/no) and should have the same format.

The TSS element is large and its transcription arrow matched in size. Strictly, it's not necessary to repeat the elements on the axis of the repressed gene.

A couple of ways to indicate that ATRX has been knocked out. The "wild-type" and "ATRX^null" labels indicate the experimental condition whereas the line through ATRX indicates that the corresponding protein isn't in circulation. I prefer a single red line to an "X", because it improves the visibility of the text underneath. It's also reminiscent of road signs in Europe indicating the boundary of towns.

TERRA has been offset from the rectangle to avoid confusion.

The original design had the repeat sequence, which was removed in Cell's redesign. It's not strictly necessary but it can be easily added without interfering with other elements. In fact, it fits in nicely because it counterbalances the element labels (TSS, TSS, etc) in the gene tracks.

Label only what is necessary. The nucleus plays no role in the story and doesn't deserve a mention. The sperm diagram itself is too complex — its only relevant elements are the midpiece (to which the patch clamp is applied) and the extent of wiggle of the principal piece. Notice too that the angle of the sperm and shading implies a three-dimensional environment in which the principal piece is receeding into the background and placing the area of interest (red rectangle) furthest from the viewer.

The color outside the membrane in the crop is different than the color outside the principal piece in the full-scale drawing. Yes, this is a minor point but this inconsistency is neither unavoidable nor beneficial to the design.

The color inside the membrane is different in the left and right panels. Is it less orange in the right panel to indicate that the orange protons have been transported out? If so, why is the remaining color green and not light orange?

Why are two Hv1 channels drawn? Since they don't necessarily appear in pairs, drawing one (the smallest number needed to tell the story) is simpler and therefore better.

No gradient arrows.

The "motile" label describes the sperm yet it is closer to the crop rectangle. Again, this is unlikely to lead to confusion but you should nevertheless manage the distance between labels and their elements carefully, because if it's not done well in simple diagrams it will definitely not be done well when it's needed in complex diagrams.

The "increased pH" label is redundant, given that "alkaline environment" also appears in the center.

The background color is not necessary. It's almost never necessary.

What are these magenta dots? Notice how protons are labeled in the original but not in Cell's redesign. I don't think it's good to assume that we know what is being transported, given that the graphic has a "removal of Zn²⁺" label.

The circle indicating the crop is colored red to match the magenta-is-important theme. Also notice that the "principal piece" label is placed close to the tail and not the crop circle to avoid ambiguity in what is being labeled. In Cell's redesign the label is next to and aligned with the rectangle, which goes against Gestalt principle of spatial grouping.

I've drawn a single membrane in open form (extends beyond the frame). The membrane here provides spatial context (Hv1 is a membrane channel) and we don't need two membrane segments to say that there are two cases (inactivated and activated Hv1).

I've moved the labels off to the side, to more strongly attach them to the activated state rather than how Cell had it in the middle, associated with the process of activation. In this case, I don't think that it's necessary to have three parts in the story: inactivated, activation, activated. The first and last are enough.

I've drawn the sperm more simply than at the top (midpiece is not called out) because the purpose of the illustrations at the bottom is to emphasize the motility by the amount of wiggle in the tail. In Cell's redesign, the tail was white and had poor contrast with the background — this made the wiggle less obvious. Also, the "motile" and "hypermotile" labels are below the sperm and not between it and the membrane — this serves better to label simultaneously the state of the sperm and the entire side of the graphic.

It's fine to show all the ideograms for a genome, especially for one with as few chromosomes as the fly, but if you commit to drawing them, draw them in proportion to their sequenced length.

These scattered transcription symbols occupy a large amount of space and add business. They're also not necessary to communicate that the method is RNAi.

The white arrow has poor contrast with the light background. Arrows further down are smaller (why?) and aligned to a different vertical axis. This axis is close to the fat-body fly, but not perfectly centered on it. Is this just centered alignment to fit the other downstream elements or does it have something to do with the fat-body fly? It's very ambiguous.

The flies are shown in too much detail and the illustrations draw insufficient attention to the tissues of interest. The wings cover up the liver highlights, the legs are too thin to emphasize that muscle is being studied and the dark red head is not sufficiently different from the dark grey one to indicate neuronal tissue.

Committing to left-aligned scene labels results in increasing distance between the labels and the scene. In the mutant row, the mouse is longingly staring at the label. Did you notice that the flies point to the right but the mouse points to the left?

The inhibition arrow clearly communicates that white fat cell adipogenesis is inhibited. It's not necessary to then also draw the white fat cell as semi-transparent — this only reduces the visibility of an important element in the graphic without providing any new information.

The scenes are laid out in a waterfall layout for a diagonal eye path. Scene labels provide detail that is not included (or obvious from) the graphic: screen type (RNAi), variable measured (triglyceride levels), in vivo model (hedgehog mutant).

The idea of a screen is represented by locations on the ideograms with a small fraction of locations highlighted. This fraction is clearly identified as candidate obesity genes and I've added the number of these genes to communicate the scope of the screen.

The fly shapes are simple with the tissues of interest very visibly identified. The liver is not shown as a series of circles because circles have already been used to indicate genes. Instead, the liver is shown as a series of beads on a string. The output from the screen is annotated with "top-scoring" to emphasize why hedgehog was singled out.

The white and brown adipogenesis branches are oriented so that the hedgehog label is closer to the white pathway, which it inhibits. The arrows start directly at the mutant and the top-level stem cell is not shown.

If the graphic has done its job, this label is not strictly necessary. However, it nicely bookends the end of the story, providing a sense of symmetry with the label that starts the story.

Don't mix caps and lower case. There's very little benefit to capitalize "non-aggressive" and "aggressive" — the main cue for these categories should be shapes and colors.

There is no need for this arrow to be curved and different in thickness from the MAGL arrow, which is also curved, but at a different angle. Curved arrows are more dynamic than straight arrows and therefore useful to indicate movement or transport — "look here" or "this happens next" arrows should be straight so that, when needed, curved arrows can be used effectively.

These red arrows cross the cell to reach to the text labels on its other side. Why not rearrange the text to shorten these arrows? What is meant by the different locations of each of the labels in the cell? That they're in different pathways? This spatial scattering is not needed.

Cell added the mice to provide context to the cell graphic. This is a good idea but context doesn't always have to be shown in a crop box and with a totally different graphical style. Instead, find a way to match how the context is displayed as close to the way the main story is displayed.

The "MAGL-disrupted" text does not need to be red.

The diet labels aren't centered to anything (other than horizontally to themselves).

These two labels are redundant. It's enough to say "enhanced tumor growth" because the other state is implied by the graphic. I would argue that these labels are actually not necessary if the graphic does a good job in communicating this visually.

A simple mouse with a simple tumor shape, which is reused to show the tumor cell in greater detail. Find ways to recycle shapes like this to provide continuity and limit redundant labeling.

Both reaction arrows are identical and symmetry of substrates (high-fat diet, monoglycerides) is enforced. This helps show that the process on the left is of the same kind as the process on the right and, like recycling the cell shape, recycling arrows and pathway shapes reduces clutter.

The arrow into the cell is very carefully placed to avoid unnecessary overlap with the tentacles of the cell. In fact, the tentacles have been moved around so that the internal labels fit and so that this arrow has a natural entry into the cell.

The very faint magenta gradient indicates progression from non-aggresive (top, white) to aggressive (bottom, magenta). This is about as strong a gradient as I would use.

The virus clipart is too large and does not benefit from a gradient. If anything, the gradient should be dark, not light, in the center to more firmly attach the graphic to its location.

Arrows do not need to be curved. Notice how the arrow to the first mouse is curved but the arrow from the last mouse is straight.

A dashed arrow here does not clearly encode "more passages". Dashed lines should be reserved for cutoffs or explicit dividers to aid in comparison of neighbouring elements and whenever a line needs to be made fainter but without use of lighter tone.

The MA10 virus should be horizontally aligned with the MA virus.

The middle panel picks up where the first panel left off. If the two panels could be somehow joined, there would be no reason to repeat the MA10 clipart.

These arrows are far too elaborate and because each has a different length, they imply that the 1yr BALB/c mouse is somehow "further" from the MA10 virus. The arrow length says "the MA10 virus has a longer distance to travel to each mouse" but this is obviously not the case for this experiment. Avoid graphically communicating something that is not true and, importantly, that makes another encoding impossible: arrow length can not be used to imply distance in the graphical abstract or (ideally) anywhere else in the paper.

The text is too small and appears squished between the gradient and edge of the graphic. It's also much weaker than the gradient, which makes the juxtaposition of these two elements unnatural.

If possible, key observations or points raised should be incorporated into the narrative. Try to incorporate labels and longer text as close to where they belong in the story, rather than relegating them to a legend (or a laundry list).

A simplified virus with a visual weight that neither cowers nor dominates.

An inline explanation of the in vivo serial passage process. Rather than showing 10 mice, I show 10 circles for each passage, with the legend zooming in on passage 5 to show the mouse and vertical line to imply continuity with adjacent passages. I've added the strain of the mice used for passages — the mouse is an outline because this is an albino strain (compared to the black C57BL/6J strain).

I've added this (see Figure 1 in the paper) to show how having a strong axis for the passages allows for the overlay of data.

The key observation that host genetics and age has an impact on disease severity is folded into the graphic as a title. Notice that "... on disease severity" is not needed in the title, because there is a disease severity bar below the mice.

The other two key observations are placed at the bottom, where they were before, but now more clearly aligned with the most closely related element: the countermeasures are against MA10 (thus aligned with it) and pathogenesis is immediately under the "disease severity" bar.

The symptom icons are inconsistent. The asymptomatic individual is suitably shown. If we accept the symptomatic individual with the thermometer and blood squirting from the ears (headache?), then the hospitalized person, who is lying down, certainly suffers from these two symptoms (and likely more). The × suffix for subject counts is unnecessary.

These two identical arrows mean completely different things. The one pointing to serum means "extracted from each individual". The one pointing to mAbs means "individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 have one or more of these mAbs, each of which was isolated from various sources".

Showing five plates and a legend is a very busy way to signal what was done. Notice that the colors are actually irrelevant — what is to be learned from the patterns on each plate for each of the sites tested. The labels in the legend are also too faint, whereas the outlines of the plates themselves are too prominent.

This is a pretty structure but unfortunately shrunk by the legend and the image of the back of the protein (on the right). Labels should be brought close to the structure. Color selection misses an opportunity to group Ia and Ib sites.

This is a frustrating Venn diagram because it obfuscates the simple the message of the paper that RBD is 90% immunodominant. The size of the circles seems to be arbitrarily chosen to allow sufficient room for labels.

This plot misses the opportunity to connect the sampling times t1 and t2 of the serum collection to (a) calculating the decay and (b) the fact that symptomatic individuals have more antibodies.

This plot unnecessarily repeats the person icons. Their order on this plot, which is what you expect if y-axis is severity, contradicts the order of the icons in the "exposed individuals" panel, where it would have been more sensible to put the asymptomatic person first and have "severity" go from left to right.

The hospitalized icon has the same head and torso of the others, but slightly shorter legs to keep the icon compact. Red is universally understood to be the color of disease and, generally, any kind of undesirable outcome.

The left side of the abstract is a table, with the columns corresponding to disease severity. This is reinforced by little white notches.

These data weren't in the original abstracts, but I thought they might be useful to show because they speak to immunodominance. Individual mAbs are rows, which nicely create a table with the disease severity columns.

The decay traces reuse the serum time collection axis. The white axes repeat the motif used elsewhere to cue the eye. Importantly, red lines (antibodies from symptomatic/hospitalized individuals) are higher on the y-axis indicating more abundance.

The protein structure is aligned in such a way as to align the red and cyan mAbs icons at the end of the callout lines align with the corresponding icons in the "blockade of RBD binding" table. The structure is a relatively busy graphic and in the supplemental designs I show other ways in which it can be presented.