Upcoming businesses in recent years, especially in the online space, have the mandate of
distinguishing themselves from the competition and position themselves favourably in the minds of
consumers. One aspect of this is to create unique and beautiful websites that aligns with the
business and the geography they cater to. There are several CSS frameworks that developers can
readily use like Bootstrap. But as the business scales itself and caters to multiple markets, they need
to opt in for a flexible framework that transcends all boundaries. In this blogpost, we at
HireIndianProgrammers, will look at one such popular framework – Tailwind CSS and explain why it
is really good CSS framework.
Taking custom design to the next level
Tailwind CSS proclaims itself as a utility first CSS framework for designing and deploying custom
designs. Business clients can think of it as building blocks for styling components from scratch. A low
end framework, it also extensive documentation that will possibly benefit new users. If businesses
want to truly stand out, they can go for Tailwind, that gives a high degree of control over designing
and allows for easy designing of large websites.
It needs to be installed via the npm JavaScript package manager. Then, a dedicated style CSS file is
created. Now Tailwind is initiated using a command wherein the desired customisation options are
inserted. The developer is now free to create his styles after which he links the same to an output
CSS file. The Tailwind reference section that shows the various utilities along with their effects can
be used by developers for help.
The designing process
Developers can build the template by compartmentalising into sections – header, services, projects
and footer. This is left to the client to determine according to his business. As regards the header, a
number of options are available for the develop to play around with, ranging from padding,
background colour to alignment and visibility. Developers can blend elements of Font Awesome to
add a twist. Perhaps, the biggest highlight is different styling can be deployed for different devices
using breakpoint prefixes. The same holds for services section wherein dimensions can be set for
every component with even some cool effects like shadows.
A great feature of Tailwind is its ability to create component level design by extracting custom code
– a trick that can do away with code repetition. The code can be entered in style CSS and extracted
using the apply directive. Want to add a bit of dynamic effects? Developers can implement this by
creating their own utilities wherever Tailwind doesn’t have that provision. All one needs to do is to
add the desired class in the style CSS file under utilities declaration. In addition to being able to view
the effects in real time, developers can also tweak existing attributes (utility) by virtue of
customisation. This can be done in the Tailwind configuration file by adding the necessary CSS code.
Finally, in the footer section too, similar customisations can be attempted by developers to highlight
their contact section. For instance, a three column grid can be deployed using the flexbox utility
along with social sharing widgets.
Final thoughts
As any developer would agree, Tailwind makes for an easy workflow with the ability for component
level design. All one needs to know is basic CSS code and they are free to sketch beautiful websites.
Sky is the limit, truly. Tailwind is a cool alternative for those clients looking to hire a programmer to
develop a stand-out website.
