We all make the common mistake of directly styling out-of-the-box Drupal markup because it is perceived faster at first glance. But if we're to build maintainable and scalable design systems we need to look at more sustainable approaches. My session looks at design components with a living styleguide and how this will help us leading into the release of Drupal 8 and beyond.
Original session proposal:
"The traditional approach of directly styling default Drupal markup is no longer a viable solution for any serious Drupal project. With the looming release of Drupal 8, abstracting our design patterns into manageable components will make upgrading our Drupal 7 themes possible without a total re-theme. By using a styleguide we can automate the process of isolating and cataloguing patterns, allowing us to iterate through the storm of rapid change happening on the front-end. Maintaining full controll of our design patterns also opens doors to experimenting with above-the-fold performance tuning and automated regression testing.
In this presentation I will discuss the pains of traditional CMS theming and highlight the benefits, challenges and processes around styleguide-driven development. I will also delve into how Drupal 8 and Twig makes the use of an automated styleguide even more valuable.
This session is built on top of a blog post I wrote on the PreviousNext website that was featured in the Weekly Drop and expands upon my coworker John Albin Wilkin's ideas on the same topic."
