擇
Symbols Life
choice
ㄗㄜˊ zé
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.
Picking one thing over others. Chinese distinguishes ordinary selection from a hard choice made under pressure.
Before you commit
Choose with care擇 is a verb, not a noun. Alone it reads as to choose rather than a choice, which may not be the statement you intend.
Pairs well with抉擇 for a difficult, weighty choice, or 擇善 from the classical phrase about choosing the good and holding to it.
At small sizesSeventeen strokes with a dense right side. Needs size; the horizontal bands on the right close up in small work.
Meaning
To choose, to select with care; to discriminate between options.
The considered choice - the character in choosing friends and choosing a path.
Other characters for “choice”
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