雲
Symbols Nature
cloud
ㄩㄣˊ yún
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.
Cloud: drifting detachment in poetry, and also the standard Chinese image for an unsettled, wandering life.
Before you commit
Choose with care行雲流水 means effortless natural grace, but 浮雲, floating cloud, means something fleeting and not worth caring about. Both readings are live.
JapaneseThe simplified 云 is a separate character in Chinese meaning to say. Use 雲 for the cloud; 云 will not read as weather.
At small sizesThe rain radical on top fills in first. Below about 3 cm the four dots become one bar.
Meaning
Cloud.
The traditional form, rain above the old cloud element; well balanced on the page.
Other characters for “cloud”
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.
Related concepts