> Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?"

Chemists are extremely brand-aware regarding their figures.

In synthetic chemistry many chemists could guess the author based just on the color scheme of the paper's figures.

For instance, look at the consistency here: https://macmillan.princeton.edu/publications/

And it comes with rewards! The above lab is synonymous with several popular techniques (one, organocatalysis, which garnered a Nobel prize) - the association would be much less strong if the lab hadn't kept a consistent brand over so many years.