自
Symbols Emotions
self-love
愛
ㄗˋ ㄞˋ zì ài
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.
In Chinese this lands as self-respect and not letting yourself down, rather than the modern wellness sense.
Before you commit
Choose with care自愛 does not mean self-care. It means not letting yourself down, and 請自愛 is something you say to someone behaving badly.
Pairs well withThe phrase people actually use for the modern meaning is 愛自己, love yourself — three characters, and unmistakable.
At small sizes自 is 6 strokes against 愛 at 13. The pair sits unevenly in a vertical column unless you adjust the weighting.
Meaning
To conduct oneself with dignity; to take care of oneself.
The real word, though its meaning is closer to self-respect.
Other characters for “self-love”
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