diff --git a/src/display.jl b/src/display.jl
index 90d63462..016fae43 100644
--- a/src/display.jl
+++ b/src/display.jl
@@ -133,7 +133,12 @@ include("displays/electron.jl")
 include("displays/ijulia.jl")
 
 # default to electron display (will get over-written when Requires.jl picks up IJulia code)
-SyncPlot(p::Plot) = SyncPlot(p, ElectronDisplay(p))
+const DEFAULT_DISPLAY = Ref{Type{<:AbstractPlotlyDisplay}}(ElectronDisplay)
+
+function set_display!(x::Type{T}) where T <: AbstractPlotlyDisplay
+    DEFAULT_DISPLAY[] = x
+end
+SyncPlot(p::Plot) = SyncPlot(p, DEFAULT_DISPLAY[](p))
 
 # methods to convert from one frontend to another
 let
diff --git a/src/displays/ijulia.jl b/src/displays/ijulia.jl
index 5ff08931..683de21e 100644
--- a/src/displays/ijulia.jl
+++ b/src/displays/ijulia.jl
@@ -183,8 +183,7 @@ prependtraces!(jd::JupyterDisplay, update::Associative=Dict(),
                  "application/vnd.plotly.v1+json" => JSON.lower(p))
         end
     end
-
-    SyncPlot(p::Plot) = SyncPlot(p, JupyterDisplay(p))
+    set_display!(JupyterDisplay)
 
     IJulia.display_dict(p::Plot) =
         Dict("text/plain" => sprint(show, "text/plain", p))