If you will be creating a large number of charts for a client and you want a consistent look and feel, consistent with brand guidelines, straight out of the box, you can use [matplotlib style sheets](https://matplotlib.org/stable/users/explain/customizing.html#customizing-with-style-sheets) to set the rcParams ("rc parameters").
Use your custom style sheets by calling [`style.use`](https://matplotlib.org/stable/api/style_api.html#matplotlib.style.use "matplotlib.style.use") with the path or URL to the style sheet.
For example, you might want to create `client.mplstyle` with the following:
```
# FONT
font.sans-serif: Gill Sans MT, Gill Sans, Source Sans, Arial, sans-serif
# AXES
axes.spines.top: False
axes.spines.right: False
axes.prop_cycle: cycler('color', ['002F6C', 'BA0C2F', '8C8985', '0067B9', '651D32', '6C6463', 'A7C6ED', '717C71', 'C25A78', '212721', 'CFCDC9'])
# TICKS
xtick.color: 6C6463
ytick.color: 6C6463
# FIGURE
figure.figsize: 6.4, 4.8
# IMAGE
image.interpolation: antialiased # see help(imshow) for options
image.cmap: coolwarm # A colormap name, gray etc...
```
Then, when you are developing charts for that client, you can use:
```python
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.style.use('client.mplstyle')
```
You can also combine style sheets by passing a list of styles:
```python
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.style.use(['dark_background', 'client'])
```
Note that styles further to the right will overwrite values that are already defined by styles on the left.
For a list of all rcParams you can adjust, see the [default matplotlibrc file](https://matplotlib.org/stable/users/explain/customizing.html#the-default-matplotlibrc-file).
You can also explore the default provided styles in any environment with matplotlib installed, find them (on Windows using [[miniforge3]]) at:
```
~/miniforge3/envs/<env>/Liv/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/stylelib
```
## customize the matplotlibrc file
If there are other rcParams that you need to adjust, such as the backend, you can instead [customize the matplotlibrc file](https://matplotlib.org/stable/users/explain/customizing.html#the-matplotlibrc-file).
The `matplotlibrc` file controls all of the styling of [[matplotlib]] charts. Edit the file to set your own style for any element of a chart. The settings in this file are also called rcParams or "rc parameters". The `matplotlibrc` is read at startup to configure Matplotlib. Store the file in the current working directory.