明
Symbols Mind
clarity of mind
ㄇㄧㄥˊ míng
Two versions of the same picture, and both are free with no account and no watermark. The first has no background at all, which is the one to send your artist — but a phone or computer photo viewer set to dark will show black strokes on dark grey and it can look like nothing downloaded. If that happens, use the second one: identical characters on a plain white background. Either way you get the characters on their own — the square and the faint guide lines you see above are not in the file. Each character is 1000px, so a two-character download is 2000×1000, and the script and layout are the ones you picked.
Script
Characters
Same in both
Layout
Rubbing mode: white on black, as a stone rubbing. The download is unaffected.
A mind that is not muddled - seeing what is in front of you and knowing what you think about it.
Before you commit
Choose with care明 is one of the busiest characters in Chinese - bright, obvious, to understand, tomorrow, and the Ming dynasty. Clarity is only part of its range.
Pairs well with明白 for understanding, 清醒 for sober and wide awake, 清明 for a lucid mind - though 清明 is also the tomb-sweeping festival.
At small sizesEight strokes, evenly balanced left and right. One of the most forgiving characters here at small sizes.
Meaning
Bright, clear; to understand plainly.
Both the brightness of light and the verb for having something clear - 明白 is to understand.
Other characters for “clarity of mind”
What to do next
Pick the script and layout you want above, download the PNG, and send that file to your artist. Ask them to work from the file rather than redrawing the character freehand — that is where strokes go missing.
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