You can almost hear Don LaFontaine’s ominous voiceover introduction to the film now: “In a world where your identity and quality of life depends on corporate sponsorship, losing your sponsor could mean the difference between upscale condo living and West Virginia public housing.”

In his new comedic short film “nyc 2057ad,” Richmond animator and commercial ad designer Stephen W. Brandt explores what the future may hold if corporations are allowed to run our lives. The two-minute short recently made its television debut on Logo Network’s “Alien Boot Camp,” a show featuring gay and lesbian-themed animation.

39-year-old Brandt is part of Richmond’s creative community, and like many, a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University. And like so many more creative types, he paid his dues with stints in Los Angeles or New York City. In the early 1990s, he worked on the west coast in broadcast design at E! Entertainment Television and Turner Entertainment Networks. Later, he freelanced in New York City as an art director for such companies as PBS, Showtime and The Movie Channel.

Brandt held on to his freelancer status when he moved back here in 2001, but now his domain is animation and television commercial production. He says transitioning from broadcast design to what he does now wasn’t difficult to do artistically.

“I actually feel like I almost have—even doing television commercials through ad agencies—more freedom than I did before, simply because when I was in broadcast design, I was expected to work in the style of the television networks,” Brandt says.

Since then, Brandt has created commercials for the likes of Bojangle’s Chicken, The Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation and World of Mirth. He’s also written, produced, and directed some short films, in addition to “nyc 2057ad.” If that wasn’t versatile enough, he also composes the music for most of his animated shorts.

While he says he enjoys experimenting with a variety of looks and techniques, he is drawn to a few visual styles in particular. One of those Brandt describes as “the penny arcade look,” which is abstract, mechanical, contemporary and reminiscent of Betty Boop cartoons all at once. It is perhaps what TV ads would have looked like in the 1940s if advertising executives had access to today’s modern software. If commercials were fun to watch, as Brandt’s are, then viewers wouldn’t flip the channels in between breaks as much as they do.

His other stylistic influence is Paul Klee, an early twentieth century painter associated with Germany’s Bauhaus movement. Klee was known for employing a variety of styles, including elements of cubism, surrealism, and expressionism.

“nyc 2057ad” was designed with Klee’s theories of color in mind. “A lot of art historians might say Gauguin liberated color, whereas Paul Klee re-tamed it. His usage of color is very much the forerunner of a lot of how color is used in graphic design,” Brandt says.

“nyc 2075ad” was born out Brandt’s discontent with the downsides of commercialization and living in a materialistic culture. “I didn’t want to come right out and say, ‘Beware of corporate sponsorships’ because I think it is already too late,” he laughs. He is in a unique position to question cultural and corporate mores as someone who worked for several major media companies earlier in his career.

“I feel like I dealt with that in the past when I was a broadcast designer, and that’s one of the reasons why I left,” he says, adding that he thought some of the corporations that he worked for “were doing some pretty ugly things.”

As a freelancer, Brandt can now go after the clients he’d rather help, such as local businesses like Plan 9 Music, and smaller companies like Bojangles that don’t fall into the “multi-national conglomerate“ category, he says.

There may be more transitions to come for Brandt. Right now, he’s working on a pitch for a television series (he won‘t say to whom) and possibly sees a animated feature in his future.

But for now, living in Richmond affords him a comfortable lifestyle, ample workload, and the time to develop his animated projects.

“I can pretty much live anywhere, but living in Richmond means I can take on fewer clients because it’s easier to live here,” he says. He wishes some of the city’s larger ad agencies would take notice of local talent, however.

“I think that’s one way the creative environment in Richmond could really improve—if the larger agencies actually started to open their eyes to the local production houses, animators, and sound studios,” he says, instead of outsourcing extra work out of state. With a hint of hope, he adds “and I think that may be starting to slowly happen.”

See Brandt’s “nyc 2057ad” at http://www.swbrandt.com