longing

思

ㄙ sī

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

Layout

Missing someone or something so persistently that the missing becomes its own feeling.

Before you commit

Choose with care思 alone reads primarily as to think. The unmistakable words for missing someone are 思念 and 想念; the single character leaves it open.

At small sizes思 is nine strokes, a field over a heart, evenly weighted and open. It reduces cleanly and works well on curved placements.

Cultural note相思 comes with the 紅豆 red bean of Wang Wei's poem, still the standard image for longing between lovers. It is romantic, not general.

Meaning

To think of; to miss someone who is absent.

Thinking and missing are the same character here, which is the whole idea of longing.

Other characters for “longing”

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.

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