梅
Symbols Nature
plum blossom
ㄇㄟˊ méi
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 blossom that opens in snow before anything else does; the emblem of enduring and then flowering.
Before you commit
Choose with care梅 is the East Asian mei or ume, not the European plum you eat. That fruit is 李子 or 洋李, and the tree is prized for its flowers, not its crop.
At small sizesEleven strokes, wood radical left. Holds together well at moderate scale.
Cultural noteOne of the Four Gentlemen, and the national flower of the Republic of China. Its five petals are read as a deliberate symbol in Taiwan, so it is not politically neutral there.
Meaning
The mei tree and its blossom; also a common surname.
The single character carries the whole image for any Chinese reader.
Other characters for “plum blossom”
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