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I'm using the standard serif fonts in KOMA script for typesetting my thesis, 11pt for normal text. What font and font size would be recommended for use in graphs, diagrams and flow charts?

The same font as the normal text or a sans serif font for better "contrast"?

What about font size in graphics?

lockstep
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MostlyHarmless
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    This is more a question of typography than anything particularly related to TeX... – Seamus Apr 05 '11 at 10:25
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    Maybe this answer is helpful. – lockstep Apr 05 '11 at 10:51
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    Regarding font size: most diagrams are scaled and this makes it difficult to use the same font size across all diagrams. I'd consider a consistent font size a mark of quality. – Christian Lindig May 14 '11 at 15:33
  • @Christian Lindig: That's exactly why I try to create my diagrams in "real" size to not have to scale them later. I'm using IPE (http://ipe7.sourceforge.net/), so I can use LaTeX code directly in the graphs and I try not to scale them with includegraphics. – MostlyHarmless May 14 '11 at 19:13
  • @Martin I'd consider this quite an achievement as it takes a lot of planning! So far I've noticed this mostly in professionally published books where sketches get re-created by an illustrator. – Christian Lindig May 14 '11 at 19:22
  • @Christian Lindig: yes, it is a lot of extra work and life was much easier as I just used the width = x*\textwidth option of the \includegraphics command. However, as I'm creating most of the graphs directly for my dissertation, it is not too difficult to make them in a consistent way and IPE (ipe7.sourceforge.net) has the great ability to "import" any PDF, edit vector graphics and make its text editable with all the power of LaTeX. So I can also use diagrams created with other software and printed to PDF, however it is quite a lot of work to reformat all the axis labels... – MostlyHarmless May 14 '11 at 19:36
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    The question and the accepted answer are not specific to TeX, and depend on the style guide that it used. But there are some TeX-specific ways to maintain consistency: (1) use TeX packages to produce the diagrams, (2) use LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX with a TrueType font since this will be easier to use in other applications that create the images, (3) create the images as PDFs with the page size equal to the image size and import using graphicx, (4) import whole-page PDFs with pdfpages. – musarithmia Aug 01 '14 at 11:35
  • I would generally recommend \sffamily for smaller captions, as sans-serif tends to be more legible at those sizes. Traditionally, Times would be paired with Helvetica (or Arial) and Palatino with Optima (or Classico), for example. – Davislor May 28 '19 at 20:38

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I found recommendations of Springer publishing for preparing graphics for their books, which are quite interesting and helpful:

https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/book-authors-editors/your-publication-journey/manuscript-preparation

They say:

Figure Lettering

  • To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
  • Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
  • Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
  • Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
  • Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

For the moment I've decided to use the Sans Serif fonts with the \sffamily command for my graphics.

ctietze
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MostlyHarmless
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