覺
Symbols Protection
alertness
ㄐㄩㄝˊ jué
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.
Being awake to what is around you. Chinese has separate characters for waking, for noticing and for quickness of mind.
Before you commit
Choose with care覺 has two readings. As jue it is awareness; as jiao it is sleep, since 睡覺 is to go to bed. The written character gives no hint which is meant.
Pairs well with警覺 for alertness to danger, 覺察 for noticing something. Either kills the sleep reading outright.
At small sizesTwenty strokes, dense across the top. This one needs real size or it turns into a smudge on skin.
Meaning
To sense, to notice, to become aware; awareness.
The awareness character, inside both perception and enlightenment.
Other characters for “alertness”
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