Hanmi Bank Client work at Advue Digital Bilingual guide
ArrivedU.S. banking, named in English MadeA Korean guide with the paths drawn out
Hanmi Bank serves Korean businesses in the United States. The reader of this guide is a decision-maker who is fluent in business and new to the U.S. financial system, reading in Korean about products, partnerships and rules that were designed and named in English. A term that translates literally often doesn’t translate usefully, and a layout built for English reading rhythm doesn’t hold once the same content is set in Korean.
What arrived
The material for a guide, and a spreadsheet of accounts.
The guide’s content moves from market context, to Hanmi’s U.S. footprint, to the products, to the cross-border partnership structures such as KOTEC. All of it was designed and named in English. The hardest part was the one that matters most: how a Korean company actually reaches a U.S. financing product, and who sits between them. A second piece came as a spreadsheet: five business checking accounts across three tiers.
So language and layout had to be one problem. Design a container in English and pour a translation into it, and the Korean breaks the rhythm. Translate a term literally, and the reader learns a word without learning the thing.
What I made
The paths, drawn instead of described.
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The diagrams. A relationship you trace, not reconstruct.
- 1The Korean company, where the reader stands.
- 2Who sits between: KOTEC’s technology evaluation and guarantee, the Korean bank’s standby letter of credit. Each handoff is labeled on the line itself.
- 3Hanmi Bank, where the loan is made. In prose this took paragraphs the reader had to assemble; here it is one path across one page.
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The type. Korean set as Korean, not as substituted English.
- 1A numbered red tab and the title carry the hierarchy, so the reader finds their place before they read.
- 2Each item leads with its English name, because that is the word on the form at the bank.
- 3The Korean explanation sits beneath it, at a size and line length set for Hangul rather than inherited from the English.
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The comparison page. Five accounts, one letter-size page.
- 1The five accounts across the top, in order of size, with the three tiers marked above them.
- 2First, what a customer compares on: opening deposit, monthly fee, the balance that waives it, transactions included.
- 3Then what only matters after they have chosen: digital banking and treasury services. Every attribute from the spreadsheet is still here, at a legible size.
Also for Hanmi
The rest of the guide, and the bank’s everyday pieces.
More pages from the guide, then the recurring work on Hanmi’s template system: deal tombstones, branch promotions, web banners, and Korean press coverage adapted into English editions.
The whole guide
All fourteen pages, then the bank’s pieces.
The guide in order, page by page, then the everyday pieces. Scroll sideways; each opens at full size in a new tab.
Guide Page 01
Guide Page 02
Guide Page 03
Guide Page 04
Guide Page 05
Guide Page 06
Guide Page 07
Guide Page 08
Guide Page 09
Guide Page 10
Guide Page 11
Guide Page 12
Guide Page 13
Guide Page 14
Piece Dublin branch promotion
Piece H Mart flyer
Piece Deal tombstone
Piece Business checking comparison
Piece Digital banking banner
Piece Press, in English
Piece Collage
Piece Juneteenth post
Piece Presidents’ Day post
What this demonstrates
A financial guide that has to land in two languages.
- Holding two contexts at once. The reader’s language and the system’s language are different, and the guide is built where they meet.
- Diagrams over prose. When a relationship is easier to trace than to read, draw it, and label the handoffs on the lines.
- Localization as a product problem. Terminology, type and layout were decided together, not a translation poured into an English container.
- Density with a decision in mind. Five accounts on one page, ordered by what a customer compares on, with the rest after they have chosen.
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Hanmi Bank serves Korean businesses operating in the United States. This project was a Korean-language guide to U.S. corporate finance — 한국 기업을 위한 미국 금융 가이드 — aimed at companies entering or expanding into the American market.
The audience made this harder than a standard finance deck. The reader is a decision-maker who is fluent in business but unfamiliar with the U.S. financial system, reading in Korean about products, partnerships, and regulatory structures that were designed and named in English. Terminology that translates literally often doesn't translate usefully, and a layout built for English reading rhythm doesn't hold when the same content is set in Korean.
I worked bilingually through the whole document, which let me treat language and layout as one problem rather than designing a container and pouring a translation into it. The content moves from market context, to Hanmi's U.S. footprint, to the specific products available, to cross-border partnership structures such as the KOTEC relationship. The most complex material — how a Korean company actually reaches a U.S. financing product, and who sits between them — I moved out of prose and into flow diagrams, so the reader can trace the path rather than reconstruct it from paragraphs.
A related piece made the same problem explicit. Handed a spreadsheet of business checking accounts — five products across three tiers — I designed it into a single-page comparison a customer could decide from rather than parse. The constraint was density: every product attribute had to stay on one letter-size page at a legible size, which meant deciding what a customer actually compares on and what only matters after they've chosen.
Hanmi Bank
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Designed a multi-section bilingual guide for Korean-speaking business readers in the U.S. market
Set Korean typography for hierarchy and reading comfort rather than treating it as substituted English text
Built diagram systems for cross-border financial relationships, including the KOTEC partnership structure
Designed the U.S. network map and the product comparison views
Maintained Hanmi's brand system across the document while keeping dense financial content scannable
Adapted Korean-language press coverage into English editions for U.S. distribution
Designed deal announcement tombstones, web banners, and LinkedIn material against an established template system
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Designing for an audience whose context you have to hold in two languages at once — and choosing diagrams over prose when a relationship is easier to trace than to read. Localization is a product problem far more often than teams treat it as one.
