啟
Symbols Mind
revelation of mind
示
ㄑㄧˇ ㄕˋ qǐ shì
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.
Something hidden being shown to you. Chinese has no single character for it - the word is built from opening and showing.
Before you commit
Choose with careNo single character carries revelation. 啟 alone reads as to open or to begin, 示 alone as to indicate, and neither is the idea by itself.
At small sizesSixteen strokes across the pair, but very unevenly split - 示 is only five. The pair looks lopsided unless it is set with care.
Cultural note啟示 is the ordinary Chinese word in Christian writing, so a reader may take it as a specifically religious claim.
Meaning
Revelation; a truth disclosed, including the religious sense.
The standard word, and the title of the Book of Revelation in Chinese Bibles.
Other characters for “revelation of mind”
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