With Tailwind CSS, it’s the same principle. But instead of writing a media query, we add a class to the HTML.

For example, suppose we want to build a responsive Grid layout.

We want it to have 1 column on small screens, 2 columns on the screen or laptop, and 3 columns on a big desktop screen.

Here’s what we do.

Let’s start with the Tailwind CSS starting template on CodePen.

Fork that.

We define the HTML adding the grid class to enable the Grid layout:

<div class="grid">
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
</div>

This automatically uses a 1 column layout.

Now we use the sm: modifier and add sm:grid-cols-2 to apply two columns starting from screens of sm size:

<div class="grid sm:grid-cols-2">
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
</div>

You will see 2 columns if the window is large enough:

Now add md:grid-cols-3:

<div class="grid sm:grid-cols-2 md:grid-cols-3">
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
  <p>Column</p>
</div>

You will see 3 columns when the window is large enough:

Full example on Codepen

We have the following prefixes, called breakpoints:

Prefix	Minimum width
sm	640px
md	768px
lg	1024px
xl	1280px
2xl	1536px

Those prefixes can be applied to any Tailwind class.

It’s important to realize that any Tailwind class is applied to all sizes by default.

Using a breakpoint prefix will only apply that class to screen sizes bigger than the one specified in the table.

So bg-black applies that background all the time, sm:bg-black only applies the black background if the screen is bigger than 640px.

Lessons in this unit:

0:	Introduction
1:	Box model properties
2:	Colors
3:	Typography
4:	Flexbox and Grid in Tailwind
5:	Modifiers
6:	▶︎ Responsive design in Tailwind
7:	Apply a style to children with Tailwind
8:	How to fix Unknown at rule @tailwindcss (unknownAtRules) in VS Code
9:	How to align center vertically using Tailwind
10:	How to use custom fonts with Tailwind CSS
11:	Setting up Tailwind CSS on Vite
12:	Show-hide an element based on existence of a parent class in Tailwind
13:	The Tailwind Cheat Sheet
14:	How to set up Tailwind CSS (v4)
15:	You can’t generate classes dynamically in Tailwind