Rhonna Farrer
Rhonna Farrer is a creative graphic artist and designer. She has shared positive messages through social media. She also shares through her award-winning app Rhonna Designs. She also has accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
She graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in art education. Prior to moving to Minnesota with her husband and first child, she taught school for one year.
Rhonna shared with the Deseret News that she began applying for freelancing jobs that she could do from home, but met with repeated rejections.
- "There was one point where I was sitting on the back porch with my kids, and I knew that they were the most important thing, but I also just kept feeling like I needed to do something with my art," Farrer said. "I had got another letter in the mail, and I thought, ‘If this is another rejection, I’ll take that as a sign that maybe this isn’t what I’m supposed to do.’ So I opened up the letter, and, of course, it was another rejection. I just started crying, and I thought, 'I can’t do this anymore. It’s too hard,' and I got this overwhelming, strong feeling: ‘Do not give up. Somebody will love your art. Just keep trying.’ "
- Farrer, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believed that she had received inspiration from God. She continued to work on her art, always relying on prayer to direct her decisions.
- ”I really truly just prayed before every step that I took to know which way to go," Farrer said. "When people ask me, 'What’s your advice? What do you have to tell me?' I’m like, 'No. 1, pray that this is the direction you need to go, and No. 2, just plow through and work hard, and just don’t give up' because if I would have given up back then, we would have lost so many opportunities, so I’m thankful that I got that strong feeling."
She freelanced for greeting card companies for several years making greeting cards, gift bags, and wrapping paper until 2003, when her family moved back to Utah and she won a contract with Creating Keepsakes magazine after entering a scrapbooking contest. She then created her own line of scrapbooking products with another manufacturing company.
In 2013, she launched her Rhonna Designs app, which provides tools to edit and design images and to share those images on social media. In 2015, Farrer's desire to share positive messages only increased after she listened to Elder David A. Bednar, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, speak in August at Brigham Young University's Campus Education Week and encourage LDS Church members to use social media to flood the earth with faith-based messages.
"I was sitting there with my husband and my daughter, and I was just saying, 'Yes, yes!' because he was saying exactly what I feel so passionate about," Farrer said. "The Internet can be so scary, but one of the things he said is that it’s created for a divine purpose, and when we use that it is a creative tool and a powerful tool, we can touch people all over the earth that you would never have a chance to meet. It makes me so happy to see people use the app to share goodness.”
Rhonna also consults for small businesses and hosts workshops. She and her husband, Jeff, have three adult children. Rhonna and Jeff have created a Design Your Life book and workbook.
