Elements of design are important for communicating science?
Nature Methods ran a series of short (usually 1-2 page) articles called "Points of View" that discussed topics including:
- Layout
- Negative space
- Story telling
- Color
- Typography
- Axies
- Arrows
- Plots
- Improving figure clarity
- and much more...
The journal collected these articles into an online list Data visualization: A view of every Points of View column.