Dotgrid

Whether you're a professional web designer looking for inspiration or an amateur who's always updating their portfolio with new sketches, you can use Dotgrid, a free and open-source application that can generate simple vector graphics based the control points you insert.

Graphical content created with this tool can be easily exported to file and further applied to your own projects. The program doesn't require installation since you just have to unzip the downloaded archive and double-click the .exe to reach the main app window.

It might not seem like much when first exploring it, but it actually supports some handy commands for inserting control points and linking them in various ways.

Up to three control points may exist on the canvas at the same time. You can either move them using the mouse or resort to the arrow keys for precision. The mouse cursor's current position is indicated by coordinates that never leave its sight.

The segments between any two point can be represented by an arc (press "s" clockwise or "a" for counter-clockwise), simple line (press "d"), Bezier (press "f") or closed path (press "g"). Alternatively, you can click on buttons to draw segments.

You can increase and decrease the stroke size (press "]" or "["), toggle the linecap (press "/"), apply a mirror effect (press spacebar), as well as remove control points (press "Esc").

Once you're pleased with the results, you can export the canvas to an image file in Dotgrid. Undoing your last action is possible if you want to delete the last segment.

The application sports a minimalistic and elegant interface. It's free and open-source, and had minimal impact on PC performance in our tests. Although it doesn't have a particularly rich set of features, Dotgrid is ideal for web designers looking for inspiration.