自
Symbols Life
freedom
由
ㄗˋ ㄧㄡˊ zì yóu
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.
Freedom in the modern political sense is a translated idea; older Chinese words say it differently.
Before you commit
Choose with careThere is no single character for freedom. 自由 is a two-character coinage that entered Chinese via Japanese in the nineteenth century, so it is modern rather than classical.
At small sizes自由 is six and five strokes, exceptionally clean. 逍遙 is far heavier and needs room.
Cultural note逍遙 is the older idea and reads very differently: not rights guaranteed by anyone, but a person who has stopped being held by things. Its commonest modern collocation, though, is 逍遙法外 — said of a criminal who has escaped punishment.
Meaning
Freedom, liberty; being able to act as you choose.
The standard modern word, understood everywhere without effort.
Other characters for “freedom”
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