Matplotlib publication stylesheet

publication.mplstyle

### FIGURE
figure.facecolor: white
figure.dpi: 300
figure.titlesize: x-large  # fontsize of the axes title
figure.titleweight: bold

### LINES
lines.linewidth: 1.5

### PATCHES
patch.facecolor: 0072B2

### LEGEND
legend.fontsize: large
legend.fancybox      : False # True for rounded box

### TICKS
xtick.direction:      in      # direction: {in, out, inout}
xtick.top:            True    # draw ticks on the top side
xtick.bottom:         True    # draw ticks on the bottom side
xtick.major.size:     6       # major tick size in points
xtick.minor.size:     3     # minor tick size in points
xtick.major.width:    0.8     # major tick width in points
xtick.minor.width:    0.6     # minor tick width in points
xtick.labelsize:      medium  # font size of the tick labels
xtick.minor.visible:  True    # visibility of minor ticks on x-axis
xtick.major.top:      True    # draw x axis top major ticks
xtick.major.bottom:   True    # draw x axis bottom major ticks
xtick.minor.top:      True    # draw x axis top minor ticks
xtick.minor.bottom:   True    # draw x axis bottom minor ticks
xtick.major.pad:      5     # distance to major tick label in points
xtick.minor.pad:      3.4     # distance to the minor tick label in points
ytick.direction:      in      # direction: {in, out, inout}
ytick.left:           True    # draw ticks on the top side
ytick.right:          True    # draw ticks on the bottom side
ytick.major.size:     6       # major tick size in points
ytick.minor.size:     3     # minor tick size in points
ytick.major.width:    0.8     # major tick width in points
ytick.minor.width:    0.6     # minor tick width in points
ytick.labelsize:      medium  # font size of the tick labels
ytick.minor.visible:  True    # visibility of minor ticks on y-axis
ytick.major.left:     True    # draw y axis left major ticks
ytick.major.right:    True    # draw y axis right major ticks
ytick.minor.left:     True    # draw y axis left minor ticks
ytick.minor.right:    True    # draw y axis right minor ticks
ytick.major.pad:      5     # distance to major tick label in points
ytick.minor.pad:      3.4     # distance to the minor tick label in points

### FONTS
font.family: serif
font.weight: normal
font.size: 15
font.serif: Computer Modern Roman
font.sans-serif: Computer Modern Sans Serif
text.usetex: True


### AXES
axes.grid: True
axes.titlesize      : x-large  # fontsize of the axes title
axes.labelsize      : x-large    # fontsize of the x any y labels
axes.facecolor: white
axes.linewidth: 1.0
axes.titleweight: normal
axes.spines.top: True
axes.spines.right: True
axes.spines.bottom: True
axes.spines.left: True
axes.prop_cycle: cycler('color', ['0072B2', '009E73', 'D55E00', 'CC79A7', 'F0E442', '56B4E9'])

### GRID
grid.color:     b0b0b0  # grid color
grid.linestyle: --      # solid
grid.linewidth: 0.8     # in points
grid.alpha:     1.0     # transparency, between 0.0 and 1.0

To use this run the following code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
try:
    plt.style.use('https://gist.githubusercontent.com/avivajpeyi/4d9839b1ceb7d3651cbb469bc6b0d69b/raw/4ee4a870126653d542572372ff3eee4e89abcab0/publication.mplstyle')
except Exception:
    plt.style.use('seaborn-whitegrid')

More customizations can be found on the matplotlib rc page.