麒
Symbols Animals
unicorn
麟
ㄑㄧˊ ㄌㄧㄣˊ qí lín
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.
China has no unicorn. It has the qilin, a benevolent hoofed beast that appears when a sage is born, and a modern literal word for the Western creature.
Before you commit
Choose with care麒麟 is not a unicorn. It has scales, hooves and often two horns, and it means a peaceful omen, not magic or purity. If you want the Western unicorn, that is 獨角獸.
Japanese麒麟 is read kirin in Japanese, where it also means giraffe and is a very well-known beer brand. Some readers will think of the label first.
Cultural note獨角獸 has meant a billion-dollar startup in Chinese business writing for about a decade. Younger urban readers may take it that way before they picture a horse.
Meaning
Qilin, the auspicious beast of Chinese legend.
The nearest cultural equivalent, and the one with real weight behind it.
Other characters for “unicorn”
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