跡
Symbols Memory
trace
ㄐㄧ jī
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 mark left by something that has passed - a footprint, a scar, the residue of an event that is otherwise over.
Before you commit
Choose with care跡 is neutral and concrete. 蹟 is a separate character for historic remains as in 古蹟, so do not treat the two as interchangeable.
JapaneseJapanese writes 跡 the same way and reads it ato, a mark or ruins. Fully legible there with much the same meaning.
At small sizesThirteen strokes with a walking radical sweeping along the lower left. That sweep needs room or the character closes up.
Meaning
A track or trace; the mark left by a foot, a hand or an event.
The everyday word for traces and footprints, written 跡 in Taiwan.
Other characters for “trace”
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