Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Kopykat will close on Wednesday, December 23rd and reopen on Monday, January 4th 2010. We hope you all have a great festive break.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

City Limits Golf Opens.

Kopykat has just printed some promotional material for City Limits Golf which has just opened in Worship Street next to the Broadgate Tower. There are 16 Floodlit bays, a Pro Shop and tuition by PGA professionals. At the moment there are lots of opening offers on so why not pay a visit to their website is www.citylimitsgolf.comand see all the great deals available? We wish Tony Sherman and all the team all the best with their new venture.

Movember Prostate Cancer Campaign.

As well as printing the promotional material for Movember the guys at Kopykat decided to enter a team Tache of the Titans. We managed to raise over £1800 towards the Prostate Cancer Charity thanks to the generosity of clients and friends. We received donations from as far afield as Shanghai, Florida, Italy, Ibiza, Australia and New Zealand. When we started the fundraising effort we hoped we might reach £1000 but it easily exceeded that and we had a good laugh growing the moustaches as well, if you want to see the end result visit http://uk.movember.com/mospace/321872/

Blue Humour.

One amusing thing I noticed in Liverpool’s new shopping complex is that Everton FC have opened a new sports shop there and called it Everton Two so their postal address is Everton Two, Liverpool One. If only!

Liverpool One.

 Just paid a visit to Liverpool and booked in at the Staybridge apartments right next door to the new Echo Arena. The City has gone through an amazing transformation over the last 3 years, the Echo Arena holds 11000 people and is on the banks of the Mersey right next door to the historic Albert Dock and has leading artists appearing there. There is also the BT Convention Centre to compliment it, if it’s retail therapy and nightlife you are after the new Liverpool One shopping complex has it all, over 45 acres of land has been redeveloped and pedestrianised with all the leading brands having a base there, a number of leading hotel groups have also opened new hotels around the complex with the Hilton opening this month. Finally, if it’s champagne and luxury you like try Champu opened by Herbert of Liverpool, best known as the celebrity hairdresser, where you can be served with champagnes ranging from £60 to £1200 per bottle. Another great place is Alma de Cuba winner of the best bar, best restaurant and UKs best venue 2008. It is set inside the magnificent conversion of the former St Peter’s Catholic Church.
http://www.liverpool-one.com

Cameras, lights, action.

Kopykat has recently had a few visits from different TV production companies so sometime next year we will feature in one of the leading reality TV shows albeit briefly, we can’t tell you what show until it’s been shown, last week we had a Nike advert shot and they wanted to film a poster being printed, we were happy to oblige in fact we told them to JUST DO IT, cheesy I know but we couldn’t resist it, then we had a visit from another TV show plate expectations who ordered menus and posters. Find out more on http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/comingup/plateexpectations/. It follows up The Restaurant series two runners up Alasdair and James, as they go it alone as event caterers always minutes away from disaster in the show, they have since been taken under Raymond's wing, learning the trade at one of his top restaurants. Now it's time to see whether they can tell their caviar from their calamari as they cater for a different event each week. Rumour has it that Vince at Kopykat has applied for an equity card as he’s now featured on all three shoots!

Get ready for Movember.

Kopykat has just printed all the promotional material for the Movember annual month long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer. The annual event started when 30 Mo Bros got together in a pub in Melbourne, Australia and took part in Movember. Mo Bros supported by their Mo Sistas start from November 1st clean shaven and then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache. Each Mo Bro effectively becomes a walking billboard for men’s health and via their Mo, raises essential funds and awareness for Movember’s men’s health partner – The Prostate Cancer Charity. At the end of Movember, a series of Gala Parties are held to thank Mo Bros and sistas for their fund raising efforts.

Last year across the globe 173,000 Mo Bro & Sistas got on board, raising more than £14 million across Movember’s men’s health partners globally. Over £30 million has now been raised globally for the fight against prostate cancer and depression in men. It will make men aware going forward of the risks they face, thereby increasing early detection, diagnosis and effective treatment.

For further information visit www.movember.com

Kopykat support 1010.

September 1st saw the launch of an organisation called 1010 who’s aim is to get everybody in the UK to try and reduce their carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010. The team behind the hit environmental film The Age of Stupid are behind the new campaign and Kopykat, having worked with the Age of Stupid team earlier in the year, were asked to produce all the promotional material for the launch at the Tate Gallery. The items needed included posters, 4 kinds of leaflets and checklists which suggested and help monitor how businesses and individuals might attempt to reduce their carbon footprint. The printed material was turned around by the team at Kopykat within a 3 day period including deliveries on August Bank holiday Monday. The material used was recycled stock and printed using vegetable inks without the use of alcohol on press. The event at the Tate attracted over 3000 people and also included a number of leading politicians and celebrities who support the new campaign. To find out more visit the website www.1010uk.org.

We become members of the FSC scheme.

Kopykat are now members of a certified FSC chain of custody scheme CU-COC-807273-AM, we are able to show the FSC logo on your printed items promoting your environmental credentials, printers who do not have chain of custody are not able to display the logo on your behalf.

Congratulations to Chad.

Chad Lilley, a Kopykat employee has recently passed his modern apprenticeship run by the British Printing Industries Federation, Chad works in the pre-press department at Kopykat on the Macs and helps plan and make plates ready for the print machines.

Well done Nando!

It was nice to see Liverpool’s star striker Fernando Torres getting married at a low key ceremony, it makes a change to some of the high profile football weddings seen over the last few years especially in these credit crunch times, he seems very down to earth, of course being a Liverpool fan I might be slightly biased.

Kopykat is completely alcohol free.

As part of our process of continual improvement with regard environmental issues Kopykat is pleased to announce that alcohol has been completely eliminated from the printing process, use of alcohol in the printing process is one of the biggest causes of ground level ozones, it also dulls gloss and affects colour, it is a dilutent that attacks the ink and it causes press operators to carry a heavier film of ink on the rollers, eliminating alcohol results in sharper quality dots, better solids and mid-tones and results in a higher quality print job for the client. Kopykat also uses reverse osmosis which controls the PH and quality of the water leading to a more consistent printing process.

Sunset in Ibiza.

Just spent the last week in Ibiza with the family and the season is just starting to warm up out there with all the opening nights of the clubs, being too old for all that now I could only watch in awe but it brought back memories certainly Es Paradis Terrenal looks as good as ever, sad thing is I even know the manager and could get in for nothing but those days are gone, my teenage son didn’t believe I knew any of the club owners until they came up and welcomed us, even he had to admit he was marginally impressed – respect.

What is still recommended though is sunset at The Cafe del Mar, Mambo or Savannah all next door to each other in San Antonio very chilled and a mixed age group, the drinks are a touch expensive but the setting makes it worthwhile, an impressive addition to the San Antonio waterfront is a new promenade that runs for a couple of miles around the harbour and leads around to the three bars, carry on further around the headland after the 3 bars and there are a couple of hotels with bars where you can also view the stunning sunsets.

Pay a visit to Tropicana bar in San Antonio show your face there a few times and Stuart originally from Bethnal Green 30 years ago will surely sort you out with passes for the clubs, this bar was made famous by the boys from Wham, George and Andrew drank there regularly in 1982 when they released there song Club Tropicana and the video was filmed at nearby Pikes Hotel, yours truly was invited but overslept so I’m gutted every time I see the video and see all my old mates in the background having a drink.

Ibiza Town is well worth a visit everything still based around the Zoo bar and port area but do if you visit try and take a walk up to the old town the D’Alt Vila, you can go to the top in the early evening and get some great photos there are also some great restaurants inside the walls of the old town.

If you are looking for a nice family friendly resort then Cala Vedella should fit the bill as it is quite small and hasn’t hardly changed in 30 years with safe bathing although it occasionally it has jellyfish, if you visit have lunch at Cana Sofia overlooking the beach, the chef has just been named the 5th best chef in Spain and the 2nd best in Ibiza, in all the years I’ve visited the food has always been good and the service excellent.

Another great restaurant is at Es Torrent on the beach you need a car to visit and it is on the pricey side but the John Dory fish is first class as again is the service, you can pick up the signs for Es Torrent on the San Josep road heading towards Porroig, not far from here also is the famous Blue Marlin at Cala Jondal often visited by celebs.

Another place to feast is Es Mirador on the San Josep road just after you leave the village heading towards San Antonio just been taken over by some Dutch people we visited on the 2nd night it was open so some dishes weren’t available but it had a nice atmosphere and overlooked a valley to the sea in the distance but the people who run it were very keen to please, San Josep itself is a typically ibicencan village and worth spending a couple of hours some great little tapas bars are based in the village.

Finally if you are feeling adventurous catch a ferry to the neighbouring island of Formentera from Ibiza Town, hire some bikes in the port and cycle along the tracks that lead to Playa Illetes azure seas and white sand await as near to the carribbean as possible but don’t forget the sun tan cream, if all that cycling makes you hungryJuan & Andreas restaurant on the beach awaits, this is quite a famous restaurant in Spain on occasion frequented by the Real Madrid football team.

The Age of Stupid.

The Age of Stupid is a film warning of the dangers of climate change and how the planet might look in 2055 if we do not do anything about it, the film stars Pete Postlethwaite who plays a man in a devastated 2055 looking back on old footage of 2008 and asking why didn’t we do something when we had the chance, the film is directed by Fran Armstrong and produced by Lizzie Gillett of One Off Productions.
Kopykat was recommended to produce all the promotional material for the film at short notice to the team at Stupid by Friends of the Earth who passed on our details due to our environmental commitment; well it was certainly a challenge print wise!

The premier was on Sunday 15th March with a premier in a solar powered tent at Leicester Square with simultaneous people’s premiers around the UK, we received the first print files on the Wednesday before the screening and needed to produce 7 different jobs made into Action packs and to be distributed to all the cinemas round the UK showing the film, the jobs varied from 50,000 leaflets to Tell a Friend leaflets in batches of 10000, they needed to be perforated, folded, trimmed and delivered by our van or overnight courier, we didn’t panic honest! Some of the team at Kopykat worked Saturday and Sunday printing and delivering right up until an hour before the premier, in fact the last print file was received 2 hours before the premier started, needless to say all went according to plan, everything arrived on time, the weather was glorious and the film received glowing acclaim, all the materials used for the promotional material was recycled stock, Kopykat also used vegetable inks and printed alcohol free and delivered in an LPG vehicle.

You can contact the team at Not Stupid if you would like to organise a private showing of the film www.ageofstupid.net

A great new venue.

Kopykat recently printed the film listings for May and June for a new venue just opened at Bermondsey Square SE1, the design was produced by The Church of London design company near to where we are based, Shortwave is a cinema with a bar/cafe with outside seating in the square, well worth a visit if you get the chance, they also have a classic kids club on a Saturday and classic screenings on a Sunday.

www.shortwavefilms.co.uk