Enabling elements of the University of Konstanz’s corporate design in R.

The unikn package provides color functions — by defining dedicated colors and color palettes, and commands for changing, viewing, and using them — and styled text elements (e.g., for marking, underlining, or plotting colored titles).  The pre-defined range of colors and text functions is based on the corporate design of the University of Konstanz (see this link for details), but can be adapted and extended for other institutions and purposes.

The package defines the following color palettes (for users of R):

The unikn package facilitates the use of corporate design elements for R users. It currently contains dedicated colors and color palettes of the University of Konstanz, plus many additional color palettes from other institutions. In addition, unikn provides a range of color functions that make it easy to define, modify, find, and use colors in R. While this renders the use of default specifications simple and straightforward, experienced users can apply the tools in a flexible and creative fashion (e.g., for designing new color palettes and using them in scientific visualizations).

The unikn package currently provides five types of objects and functions:

1. Pre-defined colors and color palettes (e.g., Seeblau and pal_unikn);

2. Functions for viewing and comparing colors (seecol()), for using or changing color palettes (usecol()), and for demonstrating color palettes (demopal());
    

   

3. Functions for creating new color palettes (newpal()), for finding similar colors (simcol()), and for searching color names (grepal());

4. Functions for plotting graphical objects (e.g., boxes and frames);

5. Functions for plotting styled text elements (e.g., highlighting and underlining text).

Essentially, the unikn package began by defining some colors, but has now grown into a toolbox for addressing color- and plotting-related tasks in R. As we had fun creating it, we hope that you enjoy using it as well!

Links:

• R package at CRAN: https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=unikn.
• Development version and documentation at GitHub: https://hneth.github.io/unikn/dev/index.html