California High-Speed Rail Authority

As the world’s seventh largest economy, California must dream boldly about the future of its transportation infrastructure. With the opportunity to connect the state from San Francisco to Los Angeles, high-speed rail in California is about far more than just trains. It’s also about achieving hugely ambitious economic goals, meeting aggressive environmental mandates, and rethinking how people get from one place to another. The California High-Speed Rail Authority engaged O+CO to help create a platform to express the principles and transformative benefits of this $69 billion mega-project. Our situational analysis focused on understanding how to connect the many stakeholders and initiatives of this hugely complex undertaking. The solution entailed a flexible approach whereby the Authority could selectively project core attributes, messages, and imagery to reinforce economic, environmental, cultural, and infrastructure benefits. We also created a unique architectural design language to visually represent the benefits that the new system would bring to the state’s new high-speed rail infrastructure.