Kowabunga, dudes.
Some many years ago, there was a contest to design the logo for Palladium Books‘ website. I submitted an entry that I cooked up, and didn’t win. At least, I didn’t win the initial contest. I apparently got runner-up, because my logo appeared on the site less than a year later, and has remained there ever since. I think that was 1998, about 10 years ago. I just remembered, I mailed them the file on a 3.5″ floppy. Har.
Palladium Books represents a weird middle class of gaming, having grown up with licenses for Robotech and TMNT role-playing games, and then creating its own brand, revolving around the most famous title, RIFTS. In the early 1990’s, it was a pretty innovative game, a mash-up of fantasy and sci-fi in a far-flung, post-apocalyptic Earth. My friends and I played it quite a bit through high school, but it was a clunky system and any decision to go back to it was met with some trepidation. “How long is this fight going to last? I have a date tomorrow.”
While D&D and White Wolf have undergone some high-profile makeovers in the last few years, and D&D getting ready for its FOURTH edition, if you don’t count the intermediate 3.1, 3.5, etc, but Palladium has remained relatively stable… or stagnant. It seems to putter along with roughly the same stable of writers and artists, bashing out a few books every year and continuing to put out a sizable sourcebook/magazine every month or so, called The Rifter. I guess they’re filling a niche and managing to make money doing it, so more power to them.
I popped back over to their site tonight, partly out of curiosity, and their site is still pretty much exactly the same as it always was. Same logo. They’ve even done some creative triage with photoshop to make it look decent on a white background. It’s not bad, but for me, it’s a little embarrassing. I think I’m going to call them this week and see if they want some help. It’s not going to be an easy project, since they have a store, a forum, and heaps of old press releases. I guess, if I have to, the company is in Michigan, so I can drive up there and see them, if this gets serious. Wish me luck, tolerance, and good will.
