永
Symbols Memory
permanence
久
ㄩㄥˇ ㄐㄧㄡˇ yǒng jiǔ
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.
The state of not going away. In Chinese this is a practical, official-sounding idea more than a poetic one.
Before you commit
Choose with care永久 is bureaucratic in feel. A Chinese reader meets it on documents far more often than in poetry, so it can read like a form field.
Pairs well with永恆 if you want the emotional register of eternity, 恆久 if you want lasting constancy. Both read better than 永久 as a motto.
At small sizesEight strokes over two very simple characters. One of the cleanest two-character options here at small scale.
Meaning
Permanent; for all time.
The word on residence permits, warranties and land titles.
Other characters for “permanence”
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