This one time, at band camp...

I first stumbled upon Mirror Mirror on the Wall (‘stumbled’ probably not the appropriate word in this instance, as it was recommended to me), what immediately struck me was the layout of the blog, and especially the background.

After working with a rather bland, though not at all ugly looking, blog with our own, the difference, and in my opinion, the improvement is quite drastic. The second feature of the layout and display was a lot more use of their own pictures, in comparison to our own blog, and it really improves it. I also noticed a lot of clever use of hyperlinks when referencing different websites.

In terms of the posts, with accompaniment of the photos, they work well. The writing is grammatically correct which is a must, because if it wasn’t I truly would not have made my way to the end of the post. The writing is also quirky, with witty references to pop culture. Most importantly, in my own opinion, there is a vast difference between each of the writers’ point of view, and way of writing. This allows the blog to deviate from a sense of monotony that lots of blogs seem to suffer from.

The blog is one of the more interesting ones I have read, and have yet to find a blog with a cooler background.

-Scotty

By Stephanie Pretorius

Cigarettes and coffee seem to make up the staple diet of many a journalism student and added to that, in my opinion, should be this blog. Named exactly that, Cigarettes and Coffee is at first glance a seemingly quiet and feminine blog with pink edging and lots of pictures. At first I thought: “Oh golly here we go again another bunch of poppies who are going to faff about all things Cosmopolitan. However, just like a book, a blog should not be judged by its cover or web design for that matter. While visual aids in digital media are all the rage what I was particularly concerned with was the quality of writing. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised when looking through the easily accessible blog archive I found pieces of writing that not only grabbed my attention with informing headlines but also kept me reading the whole way through. In one of the very first posts one of the bloggers from Cigarettes and Coffee says that the aim of the blog is to create an atmosphere of “students on a coffee break, discussing their lives as aspiring journalists” and a platform where all things journalistic – “ideas, grievances, fears and passions” – can be discussed. I believe that the bloggers of Cigarettes and Coffee have achieved this with an elegance of both style and creativity.

Take a look at Cigarettes and Coffee at http://journalismcigarrettesandcoffee.blogspot.com/