Asbury senior Suzanne Charette gains online following for her work in design
By Cassie Gerhardstein
Senior Features Writer
Passion drives talent. And while many people settle for the comfortable financial stability of a stale career over embracing their passions, Asbury senior Suzanne Charette is a testament to the idea that if you do what you love, it’s possible to have a career that is dually fulfilling and financially secure.
As a media communications major with a multi-media emphasis, Charette spends a significant amount of time immersed in classroom media learning; however, she found her primary passion not as a student but as a movie fan. For four years now, Charette has been using graphic design and blogging as a way to create and share movie posters.
“I just started doing it for fun,” Charette said. “It started kind of slow.” Gradually, people noticed Charette’s movie art and began sharing it around the Internet. The more she created, the more people began to follow and publicize her work. Charette is currently at a point where she sometimes finds her art all over the Internet.
“It’s just like, ‘Wow, that’s mine,’” Charette said of what it feels like to find her own work online.
Charette’s online popularity recently hit an all-time high when she received a Facebook message from a stranger informing her that the official Facebook page for the popular film, “The Hunger Games,” had shared a movie poster that she created.
“I went to [the page], and there was my picture and literally 34,000 people had ‘liked’ my thing, and they gave me credit for it and everything,” Charette said. “From that, I figured out that this could really be a job for me.”
Not only does Charette see this as a future career, but she views graphic design and media as a powerful ministry. Social media has the potential to reach millions of people, and Charette has about five accounts on various forms of social media. Her goal is to use the content she posts and the connections she makes to be a light in a dark industry.
“Those 34,000 people [who liked my poster] could have gone and read my bio and seen that I have John 3:16 on there, and someone [who has] never seen the gospel could have seen that,” she said.
Charette is also finding that, oftentimes, ministry opportunities come directly to you. Fans of her work from all over the world have reached out to her.
“I’ve had people from different countries randomly start talking to me,” she said, prefacing a story of someone from Sweden who contacted her about one of her YouTube posts.
It’s experiences like these and the growing popularity of her work that have proven to Charette that not only can she use her passion as a career and a ministry, but anyone can. It doesn’t matter what talents you possess; it only matters how you use them to glorify God.
“It doesn’t have to be outwardly Christian; it just has to be what God wants you to say,” Charette said.