Chart shape
A chart shape describes how the ten planets are distributed around the wheel as a whole, in the seven patterns Marc Edmund Jones named.
The seven are the bundle, bowl, bucket, locomotive, seesaw, splash and splay, distinguished by how much of the circle the planets occupy and whether one stands apart. A bundle crams them into a third of the wheel; a splash spreads them evenly around it.
It is a twentieth-century scheme rather than a classical one, and it says nothing the individual placements do not; what it offers is a first impression of concentration or dispersal before any of the detail is read.
Frequently asked
Does the chart shape override the placements?
No. It is a summary of how they are arranged, and every planet still means what it means in its own sign and house.
Is it classical?
No. Marc Edmund Jones proposed the seven patterns in the twentieth century, and we label them as a modern addition.