strategy

策

ㄘㄜˋ cè

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

Planning that shapes the whole contest rather than the next move — the thinking a general does before the fighting.

Before you commit

Choose with care策 also means a horse whip and, in older texts, a bamboo slip. Alone it reads as plan or policy, which is close but narrower than English strategy.

Pairs well with策略 for strategy, 兵法 for the art of war, 運籌 for orchestrating a plan.

Cultural noteStrategy carries genuine prestige here — 孫子兵法 is read by executives, not just soldiers, so the idea reads as respectable rather than cold.

Meaning

A plan or stratagem; a considered course of action.

The character in 對策 and 策略; a plan formed deliberately, not improvised.

Other characters for “strategy”

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