In addition to creating beautiful data visualizations through graphs, maps or tables, report making is also a very useful and important skill that every data scientist should possess. A good report is articulate, coherent, and well-designed. It complements your project. This blog is only for the well-designed part, though. We can talk about technical writing some other time! (I got an A+ in technical writing last semester. Not Flexing).
I'm not a pro in making reports by any stretch, but I've worked as a graphic designer for two years and have created a report or two for my personal projects. So I'll try to share with you all the resources that helped me make good reports and can possibly help you too. Hey, don't panic! You don't have to learn graphic designing. :) If you're interested, you can view the report I made for a Data Science Project I did some time ago.
Okay, let's get into it. As I said, you don't have to be a graphic designer to be able to make good reports. You just need a good tool and some practice.
Use This Tool To Design
The tool I use and what I would suggest you use if you don't have much experience in graphic designing is Canva. Canva Pro would be better if you can afford it. Even if you can't afford it, you'll find plenty of resources online that'll help you get Canva's premium version for free. You just've to look for them!
Canva is very easy to use and offers a lot of amazing features to work with. Canva also has a huge number of great built-in report templates that you can use. I would recommend you head over to Canva and explore it yourself.
Learn From These Videos
Here are some YouTube videos that will help you develop some basic design skills.
- Understand Layout and Composition
- Perfect Layout Design Step by Step
- Learn about Infographics
- Create easy INFOGRAPHICS with Canva
- Best Design resources for Developers
- Some more tips for report making
Look Up These YouTube Channels for help
YouTube channels I recommend;
- Flux Academy
- Design with Canva
- Satori Graphics
Get Your Colors Right
Color scheme is a very significant part of designing almost anything, and you've to get it right to make your report look good. No one likes to look at bad colors! But how do you get it right?! You don't have to worry about it one bit, and you don't need to waste your time learning about any color theory. Head over to Color Palette Generator for Canva, select any color palette you like and use it in your report!
These are all the resources I use, and you'll need to design stunning, professional-looking reports. But you still might be thinking that making such reports is hard?
Pro Hack
Well, it can be if you don't have any prior experience in graphic designing. But here's a hack! Don't try to create a report from scratch. Look around for reports of projects that might be similar to yours, find one you like, take inspiration from it and recreate it with your own style, although I must emphasize don't plagiarize anyone's work. I'm not kidding! You can literally get better at designing your own reports by observing other's well-made reports and understanding their design layout.
Use A Template
Pick a template from Canva and customize it for your own report. I'm asking you to use a template because then you'll not have to think about fonts, colors, and even layout too much. A template will take care of all of that hassle for you!
But Does It Matter?
Now, you might be thinking, do good graphic design skills really matter to me as a data scientist or a programmer in general? It is a skill and just like any other skill you acquire it'll only bring more opportunities to you. Whether you're a web developer or data scientist, having good design skills will help you a lot. You'll never regret investing some time and effort into it!
And hey, you can always impress people with your banger reports! Thanks for reading.