I starting to see an artistic design style being used more and more widely, particularly in the youth culture and increasingly by innovative ministries, and I’m not sure what to call it. I know the roots are based in the whole urban/punk/hip-hop/grunge/pop/retro melting pot, but it seems to me that a very detailed, ornate, geometric, and futuristic brand of that milieu is gaining traction. It’s a style I like a lot. My own personal artistic tastes tend towards either simplistic forms (such as Asian/Japanese or some of the Arts and Crafts/Mission styles) or romantic like Art Nouveau, Art Deco, or certain aspects of Victorian. I also like Gothic quite a lot. But this is one of the first times I’ve found myself deeply interested in a modern (not Modern the era but modern as in new) art movement.

Some examples of design motifs can be found by this excellent artist on iStockPhoto.

In a similar but more abstract and “dirty” vein, I was quite impressed by the work of Alex Cherry. You can see more of a graffiti influence in his artworks, although some of them are photographic in nature.

A couple of examples I know of in Christian circles where this style is showing up are the marketing materials (and to a lesser extent the Web site) of Jesus Culture (an offshoot ministry of Bethel Church in Redding, CA) and the pretty wild shirts of JesusBranded. Another place to see some interesting examples of how the church is embracing this style is at the Church Marketing Lab on Flickr (bear in mind that there’s a wide variety of styles represented there).

The thing that’s bothering me is what to call this ornate, loud, graffiti-like, youth-oriented style. I actually tried doing some research into what people are calling it or who has been instrumental in making it popular, but I didn’t have much luck. I’ll keep poking around though!

Update: I forgot to mention that I think one trend that’s contributing to this is an increased reliance on computer vector graphics. It seems a lot of the designs I like include vector-based elements.