David Smith has some notes on bbplot, a ggplot2 extension the BBC uses for its graphics:
If you’re looking a guide to making publication-ready data visualizations in R, check out the BBC Visual and Data Journalism cookbook for R graphics. Announced in a BBC blog post this week, it provides scripts for making line charts, bar charts, and other visualizations like those below used in the BBC’s data journalism.
I’m still reading through the linked cookbook but it’s a good one.