Gatsby Absurd

gatsby-absurd is a Gatsby starter template that builds a single-page site displaying the absurd.design illustration collection by Diana Valeanu, organized into editable sections and styled with styled-components. It is a boilerplate project: after cloning the repository, developers run yarn install, then yarn dev for local development or yarn build to generate a static site in the /public folder. A live demo is available at https://gatsby-absurd.vercel.app/, and the repository tracks 172 stars as a Gatsby, React, and starter project.

What is gatsby-absurd?

gatsby-absurd is a Gatsby starter that produces a single-page website using React and the Gatsby static site generator. Its core function is to give developers a starting point for a portfolio or illustration site with a structured layout. The template takes section components and data objects as input and outputs a fully built static website that can be deployed to any static host, such as Vercel.

Key Features

• Section-based content — Each section of the site is placed in src/sections, and content is separated into objects and arrays that are rendered in the components, making it straightforward to edit.
• SEO component — src/components/common/SEO.js centralizes all meta data; modify the SEO_DATA variable and the starter injects that data automatically.
• Manifest and favicon — The gatsby-plugin-manifest configuration in gatsby-config.js controls application manifest data and favicon.
• Styled-components styling — src/styles/theme.js defines the styling base, while src/styles/GlobalStyles.js includes basic element styles and a CSS reset.
• Convenient build commands — yarn dev runs the development server, yarn build creates the production build, and yarn clean clears the cache, which often fixes miscellaneous errors.

Who is it for?

• Illustrators and designers who want to present a curated collection of artworks with an existing visual style and a simple one-page layout.
• Gatsby developers who need a minimal, well-organized starter to inspect how sections and data can be structured.
• Portfolio site owners who want a pre-configured SEO component and PWA manifest without setting them up from scratch.

What can you do with gatsby-absurd?

• Illustrators: Display an illustration series by replacing the sample content in src/sections with their own projects and metadata.
• Front-end learners: Explore how a Gatsby project separates concerns through sections, themes, and global styles.
• Personal brands: Launch a lightweight personal site with the included SEO and manifest setup, then customize colors in src/styles/theme.js.

How does gatsby-absurd work?

Install dependencies with yarn install, then start the development server using yarn dev. To create a production build, run yarn build, which outputs the site to /public. If you run into errors, yarn clean clears the Gatsby cache before restarting the dev server.