lab74

lab74 is a Matplotlib style layer for scientific and institutional figures in the technical print style of ca. 1965–1980.

The style uses fine rules, compact type, direct labels, monochrome textures, and one optional accent color. It does not add old-paper, film-grain, or other retro effects.

Installation

Install lab74 from PyPI:

pip install lab74

Requirements:

• python>=3.12
• matplotlib>=3.8
• numpy>=1.26

Use

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import lab74

lab74.use()

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(x, y)
ax.set(xlabel="Energy (GeV)", ylabel=r"$\sigma$ (nb)")

The use() function applies the style. The default style is monochrome and distinguishes series by line style alone, in proportional technical text.

Use these options to add an accent or to change the line series or typeface:

lab74.use("instrument")  # Draw the first series in an accent.
lab74.use("aerospace")  # Use a different accent.
lab74.use(line_series="grayscale")  # Vary solid-line shades instead.
lab74.use(face="mono")  # Use monospaced text.

An accent colors the first line of the cycle and carries through to bars, bands, stairs, and contours. line_series applies only without one.

You can also apply the packaged Matplotlib style sheet:

plt.style.use(lab74.STYLE_PATH)

This sheet carries the same defaults as a bare lab74.use() call.

Plot tools

lab74 includes small tools for figure titles, annotations, region labels, error bars, grouped bars, hatched regions, contours, maps, tables, ticks, grids, frames, and multipanel layouts. These tools return normal Matplotlib artists. Thus, you can change the result with the Matplotlib API.

See src/lab74/ for all available tools and their docstrings.

Gallery

Executable notebooks are in the examples/.

Fonts

lab74 bundles IBM Plex Sans Condensed (the gothic face) and IBM Plex Mono (the mono face), each in regular, italic, and medium weights, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. If neither font is installed, lab74 falls back to DejaVu Sans and DejaVu Sans Mono.

Development

lab74 uses uv for environments, Ruff for formatting and linting, and ty for type checking. All four checks run in CI on every push and pull request:

uv sync
uv run ruff format src tests
uv run ruff check src tests
uv run ty check
uv run pytest

License

lab74 is available under the MIT license.