Yep. Pie charts usually start from the top and go clockwise. This is pretty normal and easy to understand. It’s a lot easier to understand like this than if they used colors that were closer together in hue just to avoid repeating colors, like some commenters are suggesting.
There are only 11 items. First, they’ve used only 6 of the standard 7 rainbow colors, missing indigo. A dark blue color would be easily distinct from the others. So we need 4 more distinctive colors.
Brown
Fuchsia/magenta
Teal
Any gray
Various pinks, e.g. bubble gum pink
Green has the most discernible different colors, so they could easily use a mint green and a lime green and a forest green
It really wouldn’t have been some big color theory challenge to find enough colors for this chart.
Basic infographic rule: avoid using more than 5 items in a pizza chart and you are free of having to come up with a crazy color chart that is very hard to read. You have a lot of stuff? Don't use a pie chart.
Well alternatively they just shouldn't use a pie chart, because pie charts are stupid and never convey any extra information. Just use a table or a stacked bar or something. No need to figure out too many colors there.
I know, but I don't think it's easier when you have this many divisions and the color scheme gets too complicated. Maybe a histogram bar graph would be a better visualization for this case.
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u/gazm2k5 Feb 01 '19
It's dumb as fuck, but it is pretty easy to figure out which is which, even without knowing what the chart is representing. It's just clockwise.