儉
Symbols Virtues
frugality
ㄐㄧㄢˇ jiǎn
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.
Living on less by choice, keeping wants small rather than merely counting costs.
Before you commit
Choose with care儉 and thrift are the same character in Chinese; there is no separate word for frugality. If you want the philosophical simple-living sense, 樸 comes closer than 儉 does.
At small sizesFifteen strokes, dense on the right. It scales poorly and is a weak choice for small placements.
Cultural note儉 is taught inside the family rather than as a personal style choice: the phrases that carry it are 勤儉持家, keeping house frugally, and 克勤克儉, from the Book of Documents. It reads as something a household practises.
Meaning
Frugal, sparing; economical in living.
The one character that carries this meaning without help.
Other characters for “frugality”
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