Korean Temple Cooking
Client Hardie Grant North America
Project Korean Temple Cooking: Lessons on Life and Buddhism with Recipes
Services Translation Typesetting & Cover Layout
Year 2025
Hardie Grant publishes incredible cookbooks, as well as children’s books and non-fiction. For this project, I inherited master InDesign files for the original version published in German. Typesetting a translation is always difficult because the English text has to fit exactly where the German text did so that printing is easier and more cost-efficient.
When typesetting, my focus is on readability and accessibility. In a cookbook, this means ensuring numbers stay with their partner (a fraction with its respective measurement, for example), as well as avoiding word and letter stacks.
Every typesetting choice is fine-tuned to make recipes as easy to read as possible. When you’re making a recipe, it can be hectic (you’re glancing at the cookbook, your glasses are steamed up, and you’re trying to find where you were)—you don’t want to accidentally do the same step twice because a word stack confused you!
In addition to recipes, there are also many narrative passages in this cookbook. I ensured readable line spacing, avoided stacks, and avoided hyphenation of proper nouns as well as Korean words. If I had to hyphenate a Korean word, I tried to ensure they were introduced previously, so the word was already familiar to the reader.
I also worked on the cover layout, switching out German text for the English text, as well as ensuring appropriate application of the foil treatment on the type.
Hadley is stellar with her communication and organization. I found her notes at each stage to be super helpful, whether they were about her design choices, things she was flagging for us to keep an eye on, questions, or general notes about where the project started, its current stage, and next steps. Hadley’s clear communication helps close any gaps that can happen when working remotely and makes it easier for me to manage the project. She is very thoughtful with her work and brings great technical knowledge to the table. It is a pleasure to work with her!
— Natalie Lundgren, Editorial Assistant at Hardie Grant