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[docs] Add Gatsby Manor blog post
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---
title: Announcing Gatsby Manor, themes for Gatsby 🎉🎊
date: "2018-02-09"
image: "gatsbymanor.jpg"
author: "Steven Natera"
---

I am proud to announce [Gatsby Manor](https://www.gatsbymanor.com/), a gallery
of themes for [Gatsby](https://www.Gatsby.org/). After 5 months of
development, Gatsby Manor is now in public beta. Check out our
[themes](https://www.gatsbymanor.com/themes) then use our [getting started](https://www.gatsbymanor.com/docs/quick-start/getting-started) guide to
kickstart your Gatsby project.

## Overview

Gatsby Manor is built on top of Gatsby to provide a painless way of building
websites with reusable React components we call themes. We even have a
cleverly named npm module for theme management called
[Jay](https://github.com/gatsbymanor/gatsby-jay) 😄.

With Jay you can download a theme from our collection, and mount it as a default
theme. Styles are applied instantly without server restarts or additional lines
of code. Because of React, interactivity is supported out of the box.

Want to switch themes? No problem. Jay can archive themes for later use in a
themes folder in your local directory. Edit and swap themes as often as you want
and Jay will manage the process. Want to learn more? Read our
[docs](https://www.gatsbymanor.com/docs/cli/)!

## How it all started

The idea began when I decided to update my personal website. I wanted a way to
rebuild my website with ease however the approaches were less than exciting.

Building a new site myself would require a lot of time. My imagination often
runs wild when it comes to web design and what is supposed take a day of work
turns into weeks of site iterations. The joys of web development often causes me
to over-engineer simple websites. Not to mention that building a development
environment alone is the biggest requirement when starting from scratch.
Therefore another option needed to be explored.

[Wordpress](https://wordpress.org/) would be the fastest solution to build a
website but I wanted to be able to rapidly prototype on customs themes.
Unfortunately, understanding the architecture to develop themes on this stack
would require additional time. Not to mention I dislike PHP (#sorryNotSorry 😅)
therefore this option was a clear loser. I tried [Hugo](https://gohugo.io/) and
[Jekyll](https://jekyllrb.com/). They gave me the right mix of speed and
control. But their templating languages were unappealing as long term options.

When I stumbled onto Gatsby, I found the golden goose. I already worked with
React before, therefore I could prototype rapidly. The development environment
gave me a tight feedback loop out of the box. And I had all the control in the
world for enhanced interactive features.

## The development process

Once settled on Gatsby, I started working on my personal website. Within 2
hours I wanted to prototype with different design elements because I found
inspiration from [html5up](https://html5up.net/) templates. However I did not
want to discard my work far.

I decided to make a new directory to store my outdated work, like a true digital
hoarder. A few more hours passed and I found myself yarning for
my original design choice because the new design was too complex. I knew this
situation would occur again (sometimes I can be indecisive 😅) so I decided to build
a small cli tool to switch between themes easily. But first I needed a name, and
Jay seemed the most clever since I was working with Gatsby.

As I was debugging code one day, I stumbled onto a feature request for a
[theme system](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/2662). At that moment,
I decided I was going to build a theme solution for the community. Five
months later, Gatsby Manor was born.

## Final notes

Gatsby Manor is in public beta until we reach v1. There are plenty of
[Github](https://github.com/gatsbymanor) contributions to go around. To get
started, try out a Gatsby Manor theme using our tutorial on [getting started](https://www.gatsbymanor.com/docs/quick-start/getting-started). Open an
issue if you see an area of improvement. Follow and send us positive vibes on
Twitter using [@TheGatsbyManor](https://twitter.com/TheGatsbyManor).

TL;DR [Gatsby Manor](https://www.gatsbymanor.com/) is a place to get themes for
your Gatsby project. Use our [getting started](https://www.gatsbymanor.com/docs/quick-start/getting-started) tutorial to use
a [theme](https://www.gatsbymanor.com/themes) in your Gatsby project today.

Cheers! 🎉🎊

[@StevenNatera](https://twitter.com/stevennatera).
4 changes: 4 additions & 0 deletions docs/blog/author.yaml
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bio: Designer turned maker living and creating in Southern California
avatar: avatars/vlad-pasculescu.jpg
twitter: "@vladpasculescu"
- id: Steven Natera
bio: Founder of Gatsby Manor. Site Reliability Engineer. Open source addict. Writer at Hackernoon.
avatar: avatars/steven-natera.jpg
twitter: "@stevennatera"
Binary file added docs/blog/avatars/steven-natera.jpg
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