The dot grid emerged as a refinement of the traditional squared grid, developed in the mid-20th century primarily within technical and engineering drawing communities. The logic was simple: graph lines create visual noise that competes with the work on the page, but removing them entirely loses the spatial reference points that make precise layout possible. Dots preserve the grid's underlying structure — same spacing, same alignment — while receding visually, leaving the marks you make as the dominant element. The format gained mainstream traction when Rhodia and later Leuchtturm1917 introduced dot grid notebooks in the early 2000s, and it spread rapidly through design, architecture, and bullet journalling communities. It now sits alongside ruled and blank as a standard paper format, valued wherever handwriting, sketching, and structured layout need to coexist on the same page.