匠
Symbols Mind
craft
ㄐㄧㄤˋ jiàng
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.
Skilled making with the hands. The Chinese character for the maker carries real respect and a quiet warning at the same time.
Before you commit
Choose with care匠 cuts both ways. 匠心 means a craftsman's ingenuity and is high praise, but 匠氣 means workmanlike and lacking spirit.
At small sizesSix strokes inside an open box radical. Simple and sturdy, though the box must stay open at the right side.
Cultural noteThe word that came back into fashion in Taiwan for someone devoted to one craft for life is the Japanese loan 職人, not 匠人. 匠 still carries respect on its own, but 匠氣 describes work that is technically correct and lifeless.
Meaning
An artisan; a skilled craftsman.
The maker as a trade - carpenter, mason and smith all end in this character.
Other characters for “craft”
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