The designer should describe SLDS styling hooks as custom CSS properties that can easily style base and custom components. Styling hooks are placeholders in the SLDS style sheet that allow developers to customize the look and feel of their Lightning components by using the corresponding CSS custom properties. For example, the developer can change the background color of a button by setting the value of the --slds-c-button-brand-color-background custom property. Styling hooks are especially useful when working with web components and shadow DOM, as they enable component-level customizations without affecting the global styles. Styling hooks also provide consistency and performance benefits, as they leverage the SLDS design tokens and the native browser support for CSS custom properties. References:

: Styling Hooks - Lightning Design System

: SLDS Styling Hooks | Lightning Web Components Developer Guide | Salesforce Developers

: SLDS Styling hooks in Lightning web components - Forcetrails

The designer should describe the Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) styling hooks as using standard CSS properties to easily style base and custom components. SLDS styling hooks allow developers to quickly and easily apply CSS classes to HTML elements, enabling consistent styling across both base and custom components. This allows developers to quickly and easily apply branding and styling to their Lightning Web Components, without needing to write custom CSS. For more information about SLDS styling hooks, please see the following Salesforce documentation: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/component-library/documentation/lwc/lwc.use_slds_styles_hooks