Cogswell College Joins Forces with AC Transit Designing Musical Scores, Digital Art, and Animation Depicting the Diversity of Systems Route

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Cogswell College, a leading educational institution offering a unique curriculum fusing Digital Art, Engineering and Entrepreneurship, joined creative forces with the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit). AC Transit is California's third-largest bus agency, providing an average of nearly 200,000 daily passenger trips with 151 bus lines throughout its 364-square-mile service area.

Cogswell College's Esports Team poses along with Cogswell Board Member Richard Chuang (at far right,) a two time Academy Award Winner and founder of PDI Dreamworks

In June 2016, AC Transit announced the start of major construction for installation of the East Bay's unprecedented Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. The Bus Rapid Transit system or BRT will revolutionize public transit in the East Bay by increasing reliability and reducing travel times along one of the region's busiest corridors. Since BRT is community focused transit, AC Transit sought a public messaging campaign that would appeal to the historic diversity of the East Bay.

The Cogswell Bus Wrap by the AC Transit Company

After an exhaustive search of community based groups and colleges offering digital art, animation, and audio services, Cogswell College's MediaWorks program garnered overwhelming approval by AC Transit's executive staff. Twenty-five students, working closely with AC Transit staff, designed musical scores, digital art, and animation that depicted the landscape of the BRT route and incorporated the corridor's rich diversity. The result was this imaginative video which reinvented how Bay Area public transit agencies communicate with the riding public: http://www.actransit.org/brt/

The students from Cogswell College's MediaWorks program were given a very specific project, with very specific guidelines with what we wanted as a client, said Robert Lyles, AC Transit's Manager of Media Affairs. We knew we had a multi-million dollar project that most riders in our transit district did not know about. We needed to make this video digestible. We had to put together a video that would not only educate riders about the Bus Rapid Transit system, but also offer a vision of what BRT would mean for their daily commutes and how it might improve their neighborhoods. The final video product delivered by MediaWorks definitely achieved that goal.

As a result, AC Transit and Cogswell College entered into an in-kind promotional agreement for a fully wrapped 40-foot Bus. The college's eye catching orange and black school colors served as the base for the promotional wrap. The imagery on the sides of the bus included Cogs - the school's dragon mascot - along with the school's logo, website address and the tagline: Discover Your Fire! This highly visible bus, estimated to be seen by over 170,000 passengers per day, is helping to promote Cogswell College to residents living in and around the East Bay area.

Said Ken Banks, Cogswell College's Acting President, The Bus wrap we collaborated on with AC Transit is a truly important advertising and promotional tool for our school outside of the South Bay area. It reflects the creativity and imagination of our student body and is helping us reach out to prospective new students in an equally imaginative way. The Bus is quite beautiful and everyone here at Cogswell was very excited to see it, especially the members of our Esports team who posed with it immediately upon its arrival on our campus. We even got phone calls from numerous Cogswell alumni who had seen the bus on East Bay streets and simply had to let us know how impactful they felt it was. We are looking forward to our continued partnership with AC Transit well into 2017 and beyond!

The success of the MediaWorks project has spawned a second collaborative agreement between Cogswell College and AC Transit. At present, students from Cogswell's Game Studio class are developing an original game app for AC Transit. This transit-themed video game is also a first-of-its-kind undertaking for a transit agency and will be available via Apple and Google App stores early in 2017. A sneak peek of the app, entitled AC Transit: Drive, is available at:

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ABOUT AC TRANSIT:

AC Transit is an innovative, modern bus system, owned by the public of the East Bay. Voters created the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit) in 1956 and subsequently approved a $16,500,000 bond issue in 1959 enabling the District to buy out the failing privately owned Key System Transit Lines. In October 1960, AC Transit's service began. 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of AC Transit bus service. In the more than half century that AC Transit has been in operation, the District has expanded its service area considerably, expanded the types of services it offers, and become a leader in the use of alternative fuels. As at its inception, AC Transit is continually looking forward for better ways to move people. AC Transit's service area is divided into two parts, called Special Transit Service Districts 1 and 2. Special Transit Service District 1 extends from San Pablo Bay to Hayward, including the cities of Richmond, San Pablo, El Cerrito, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, Piedmont, Alameda, San Leandro, Hayward, and the unincorporated areas of Ashland, Castro Valley, Cherryland, El Sobrante, Kensington, and San Lorenzo. Special Transit Service District 2 consists of the cities of Fremont and Newark in southwestern Alameda County where AC Transit operates a network of local routes. Please see: http://www.actransit.org/about-us/in-the-community/

ABOUT COGSWELL'S MEDIAWORKS PROGRAM:

Uniquely offered by Cogswell College, MediaWorks is a project-based learning Digital Audio Technology initiative, in which Audio and Digital Art & Animation students collaborate as a communications agenc

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