Drupal 8 is still in alpha, but its CSS standards synthesize a range of best practices that can and should be applied today. With some extra effort, the right classes can be added in the right places to build out your design components into a well-architected system.

We'll briefly cover the various approaches (SMACSS, OOCSS and BEM) that helped bring us to the Drupal 8 standards and, more importantly, why they matter. The component syntax will be quickly reviewed, and we'll dive into a range of examples illustrating its application. We'll use common contributed modules (such as Views, Menu Attributes, Block Class and Display Suite), theme templates and a few custom module snippets to demonstrate practical techniques that are usable right now.