長
Symbols Relationships
elder
ㄓㄤˇ zhǎng
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.
An older person owed respect, or an older generation. Chinese ties the idea to seniority rather than to age alone.
Before you commit
Choose with care長 has two readings that the written character does not distinguish: cháng, long, and zhǎng, senior. Many readers will see long first and elder second.
At small sizesEight strokes with long sweeping diagonals. Robust when small and well suited to a curved placement.
Cultural noteSeniority is a live social fact, not a sentiment. 長 appears in the everyday rules about who speaks, sits and is served first, so it reads as position rather than affection.
Meaning
Senior, elder; also to grow, and long.
The character for seniority in family and rank, from 長輩 to 首長.
Other characters for “elder”
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