Design Principles

Do

Do simplify less important information

Chart elements like gridlines, axis labels, colors, etc. can all be simplified to highlight what is most important/relevant/interesting.  You may be able to eliminate gridlines (Cole Nussbaumer, gridlines are gratuitous) or reserve colors for isolating individual data series and not for differentiating between all of the series being presented.

simplify less important information simplify less important information