Words, at the grain of culture.
ideogram limited is an independent publisher based in Kamakura, Japan. Our travel imprint, 36°N, produces guidebooks for international readers with a deep interest in Japanese culture; the inaugural volume, a guide to Kamakura, was published in 2025, with a Japanese edition to follow. We also undertake editorial and translation commissions for clients: English writing for Japanese hospitality establishments, Japanese editions of publications and research reports, and other work in which writing — not translation alone — is the central concern.
Services
36°NTravel imprint
36°N is our travel imprint, made for international readers with a deep interest in Japanese culture. We publish guidebooks that combine the practical utility of a travel guide with the substance of an editorial publication. The first volume — an English guide to Kamakura, published in 2025 — comprises more than 40 venue interviews and over 150 original photographs. A Japanese edition is forthcoming.
kamakura.36n.jp→CulturaliseHospitality writing
Culturalise provides English writing for Japanese hospitality establishments — ryokan, ryōtei, museums, temples and shrines. Rather than translating from existing Japanese drafts, we research each venue, conduct interviews, and write the English from the ground up. Whether for websites or printed brochures, the prose carries the venue's cultural context and the character of its hospitality across to the English reader.
culturalise.ideogram.jp→Editing / TranslationBilingual editorial
For companies, research organisations, and publishers, we provide translation between Japanese and English with editorial care taken throughout. As work that answers to both source and reader, we take on commissions across formats — research reports, corporate materials, product catalogues, technical documentation. Past work spans media and culture, environment, industry, technology, business, and policy research.
Practice
Our work begins with primary sources — interviews, conversations, archival material. The English or Japanese that follows is original writing, not translation: prose written from the ground up, for the reader. The principle holds in either direction. The Japanese edition of the Kamakura guidebook is approached the same way — an independent text drawn from the same research, not a translation of the English.
The editorial process behind 36°N — research, interview, and the patient shaping of prose — is what we bring to commissioned work. A small team carries both strands; each sharpens the other.
Team
Takato MoriFounder
A graduate of the London School of Economics with a PhD in international history, Takato Mori worked as a writer, editor, and translator at a British international media group before founding ideogram limited in Kamakura in 2021. Based in Japan, in collaboration with media and communications agencies in Tokyo, London, and Hong Kong, he plans, writes, and edits English-language content on Japanese businesses, culture, and regions for international audiences. His approach centres on developing English articles from Japanese-language interviews with executives and specialists, with work spanning brand websites, magazine features, and English-language production for film and video.
Karen KondoEditor
A graduate of Sophia University with a degree in English literature, Karen Kondo began her career as an international flight attendant, gaining first-hand experience of cross-cultural communication and the practice of hospitality. She later joined a New York-based international company, contributing to the quality evaluation and management of English-language web content for major US technology and AI companies. In publishing and media, she has served as an English-language proofreader and as an editor and translator of English travel guidebooks covering regions across Japan. Working at the intersection of English-language quality and the representation of Japan, she contributes editing, quality evaluation, and editorial supervision drawn from a Japanese speaker's perspective.
Contact
For all enquiries —
enquiry@ideogram.jp