red envelope

紅

包

ㄏㄨㄥˊ ㄅㄠ hóng bāo

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

The red packet of cash given at new year, weddings and births. There is no single character for it - it is always named as an object.

Before you commit

Choose with care紅包 is an everyday object word, and in Taiwan and mainland China it is also the standard euphemism for a bribe. That second sense is common enough to matter.

Cultural noteThe amount matters more than the gesture: even numbers are preferred, four is avoided because it sounds like death, and eight is welcome because it sounds like wealth.

At small sizesNine strokes beside five. Both characters are open and even, so the pair stays readable at fairly small sizes.

Meaning

A red envelope of money given as a gift or a bonus.

The universal word, and also slang for a bribe or a year-end bonus.

Other characters for “red envelope”

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