簡
Symbols Beauty
minimal
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.
Pared back to the least that works. Chinese design writing uses a two-character word for this that has passed into ordinary use.
Before you commit
Choose with care簡 alone reads as simple or brief - 簡單 easy, 簡歷 a résumé. It is also a common Taiwanese surname, so a lone 簡 may be taken as a name.
JapaneseJapanese uses 簡 only inside compounds such as 簡単, so a standing 簡 will look Chinese to a Japanese reader.
At small sizesEighteen strokes, a bamboo radical over a gate. Both parts are built from short parallel strokes and both fill in early.
Meaning
Simple, brief, uncomplicated; also a bamboo writing slip.
The root of every word for simplicity, and the shortest way to say it.
Other characters for “minimal”
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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