Tailwind and Design Tokens
Goal — Style with Tailwind and understand design tokens — the seam where design decisions become code.
By the end — A home page styled with Tailwind and driven by a few design tokens you defined and changed.
1Understand Tailwind
Tailwind is a way to style by applying small, named utility classes directly to elements, instead of writing separate CSS files.
Add Tailwind to the project and explain how utility classes work, with an example from my page.2Meet design tokens
A design token is a named design decision — a color, a spacing value, a font size — defined once and reused everywhere. A concept you already know from design tools, now in code.
Explain what design tokens are and why defining colors and spacing once, by name, matters.3Define your tokens
Set up a small set of tokens for this site so later steps can reference them by name.
Set up a few design tokens for this site — a primary color, a background, and a base spacing — and explain where they live.4Use them and see the payoff
Restyle using the tokens, then change one and watch it ripple. This is the design-to-code seam you go deep on in Phase 7.
Restyle the home page using those tokens, then change the primary color token and show me everything that updates.One change rippling everywhere is the power of tokens — a design decision made once, applied consistently by name.
5Understand the whole picture
Tie the phase together: how HTML, CSS, React, Tailwind, and tokens fit into one project.
Summarize how HTML, CSS, React, Tailwind, and tokens fit together in this project.Then commit your work.
Open the Terminal app.
git add . && git commit -m "Add Tailwind and design tokens" && git pushRecap — You styled with Tailwind and defined design tokens — changing one token rippled everywhere, the heart of the design-to-code seam.