Videmus Logo

I debated for a long time whether Videmus’s logo should lean more towards portraying the photography field, fine arts, or even writing.

All of these, though, are such essential components, not only comprising myself as a creator but also are essential in seeking the beauty in everyday life which we seem to have often lost our eyes for.
The raw vivacity surrounding us.
We have grown blind.

Finally, I settled on a name and before I could overthink it any more, I went for it.

“Videmus” is very personal to me but also aesthetically interesting. It started with my tattoo.

Tattoo backstory:

I’m very close with my grandfather (who was in his mid-80s at the time). I was returning to Hong Kong in January 2013 from my month-long visit at home and had already said my goodbyes to everyone.

In the heartache and boredom of pulling an all-nighter before the flight, I got a tattoo I had been contemplating for more than 3 years. It says “Elohim” in my grandfather’s handwriting. I took it from a scrap piece of paper I had sneakily asked him to write on a couple of months prior. His father was a Jewish immigrant and I’ve always felt a pull to be closer to that side of my heritage (“Elohim” is a Hebrew word).

He didn’t know about it until I came home that year for Christmas, and when I showed him the paper, he laughed that I had kept it.
Then I pulled up my sleeve, and tears filled his eyes. (He was thrilled about it always after that, and told everyone about it.)

There was a pattern in the feedback I got about the tattoo: raw, special, emotional, organic.

My logo needed to be the same.

So, during my time at home from Hong Kong in 2014, Grandad came over and I asked him to write “Videmus Art” on a piece of paper.

I set out one night and most of the next day to do the painstaking task of making hundreds of tiny adjustments in order to preserve the natural flow of his handwriting.

And then it was done. I’m so honored to have been able to use something so special to mark my creations.

My grandad, at the ripe age of 91, passed away on April 24, 2020.

I was in New Zealand, isolated during a nationwide Alert Level 4 in the heat of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I Facetimed him every few days for years up until the week before his passing.

This photo was taken in 2016.