永
Symbols Memory
forever
ㄩㄥˇ yǒng
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.
Without ever stopping. One character carries this in Chinese, and calligraphers treat it as the model character.
Before you commit
Choose with care永 feels adverbial - always, perpetually. Alone it hangs slightly unfinished to a Chinese eye, like writing ever- with nothing after it.
At small sizesFive strokes, all long and open. One of the safest characters for small work or for a curved placement.
Cultural note永字八法: the eight basic brush strokes are all taught through this one character, so it is usually the first thing a beginner is set to write. Whether that is really the best way in is still argued over.
Meaning
Forever, always, perpetually.
The single character behind eternal, permanent and everlasting.
Other characters for “forever”
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