Even if you’ve never heard of Domus Vim, you’ve probably seen – and used – its work. Director Ian Tran has made his mark across Sydney’s streetscape. It’s there in the mind-bending blue neon signs that guide us towards Bar Planet on Enmore Road, the metal-and-perspex A-frame that greets customers at Soulmate and the revolving cube marking Bella Brutta’s takeaway joint. In tandem with the hospitality businesses he works for – as well as the squadron of other businesses and designers he collaborates with – Tran has brought a new wave of sign-making to Sydney and turned something functional into art.

Domus Vim has existed for 11 years and began as an architectural model-making company; Tran came on board while he was studying architecture at uni. “After a few years, my boss at the time left and left me with the business,” Tran, who was 20 when he took over, tells Broadsheet. “It was [a] 10-year process of evolving and figuring out what I actually wanted to do.”

At first, Tran continued to follow in his former boss’s footsteps, but then he started moving into other areas: music events, art – and, eventually, entirely out of architecture. During the pandemic, Tran realised he could transform his “passion for food” into his work. The catalyst? Dinner à la Perspex.

The art project had Tran re-creating Sydney-famous dishes in perspex: the Humble Bakery finger bun, with its slather of pink icing and slab of butter in the middle; Ho Jiak’s truffle-dusted mi goreng with a fried egg on top; and a lacy hopper from Lankan Filling Station.

“I think the hospitality industry started to see the skills I had and … how [they] could apply it to the restaurant,” says Tran. His first commission came in 2020 via Cafe Freda’s, a statement-making sign made of alupanel (polyethylene sandwiched between aluminium sheets) with die-cut vinyl that became a landmark at the convergence of Flinders and Oxford streets. “And then from there, it just snowballed. Restaurants were coming in after seeing other signs, and I was passionate about this project. I mean, I love eating. It’s like opening that final door and being like, ‘This is what I really want to do’.”

And venues really want him to make their signs.

Over the past three years, Domus Vim has created pieces for 105 hospo venues in Sydney – like the Superfreak and Soulmate team, PS40’s new bar-on-wheels project, Odd Culture’s lofty French Bistro Grenier, and Redfern’s red-lit Attenzione – and more recently accepted commissions from venues in Queensland, Adelaide and Perth. Tran’s work is making an impact abroad, too, with commissions coming in from India, Korea and New York. All this, and Domus Vim remains a one-man operation – though Tran is quick to note he works closely with a network of businesses that help with plastic and metalwork.

About 80 per cent of the work passes through Tran’s hands. He spends around one-third of his day at the computer – the rest of the time he’s on the tools, “jumping around from laser cutters, to work tables, [the] spray booth, back to computers to check drawings”. Most components of Domus Vim’s signs are produced in-house, including the perspex work, lettering, electricals, custom spray painting and folding or rolling of metal sheets. Welding and steel laser cutting is outsourced – though Tran hopes to offer this himself as his work evolves to include more metal elements. He does half of the installs himself, but he has two local electricians on call to help out when the pieces are sparky.

“I can’t say no – [so] when we take on too much work, we also look to our suppliers to help with tasks like acrylic-box making. At the end of the day, all jobs will be back in the workshop for me to complete the finishing touches.”

Every project has a unique genesis. At the beginning, Tran would work with graphic and brand designers to design signs to fit a specific brief. But the process has become more collaborative over time: now Domus Vim works with teams from the very start, developing an eye-catching aesthetic. “They provide their brand guidelines and I see what I can translate from that into a sign that represents their business as a whole. We have developed our own design language that people are after. Some clients are like, ‘You can do whatever’. [Other] clients are like, ‘At the end of the day, it’s just a sign’.”

Tran’s work has evolved in interesting directions, often at the behest of his clients. A series of light features at Island Radio (designed in collaboration with Superhaus and Etic) created a sense of motion, despite being stationary, and involved testing a bunch of different materials. A recent project for the Hot-Listed Olympic Meats fused analogue and digital elements, delivering an airline-departures-style vibe at the ordering counter: moving text displays “Boarding Flight OM1961 To: Olympic Meats”, referencing the year owner Timothy Cassimatis’s grandmother, Olympia, arrived in Australia from Greece.

“He sent me a reference of a digital board and, in the excitement, I did not do the diligence as to how hard that was,” he says. “I just said yes, then we figured it out. I think as the world develops, we will see a lot more blending of digital and physical fabrication techniques. I would definitely be interested in [continuing to explore] that.”

While Domus Vim has evolved organically over the past decade, Tran has a couple of goals in mind. “The first would be hiring some staff. This year, I’m aiming not to have a Christmas party by myself.”

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