There is a strong temptation, when you finally get your hands on real data, to make it beautiful. Gradients. Animation. A donut chart that spins for no reason. Resist this. The data does not need a personality. It has yours.
The most useful dashboard we ever built was almost aggressively plain. A few bars, one line, a number big enough to read across the room. It answered one question and then got out of the way. People used it every day and never once complimented it, which is the highest praise a chart can receive.
A chart has exactly one job, which is to lose an argument for you. You have a hunch, and the chart either agrees or it does not. If it needs a legend, three colors that mean nothing, and a paragraph explaining how to read it, it is not a chart, it is a personality test.
So we keep them boring on purpose. Teal for the thing, amber for the other thing, and enough white space that your eye knows where to sit down. The goal is not to impress you. The goal is for you to understand something in four seconds and get on with your afternoon.