I’ve thought about this day many times over, the day everything I worked so hard for would subtly become not enough. Not enough to sustain the life I want to build. Not enough to sustain my happiness.

I’ve never been the “designer entrepreneur". I’ve never cared much for labels, in business or otherwise. I didn’t chase a certain image or splurge when the checks got bigger. I learned early on that I’d rather invest in my happiness and, even more so, in the happiness of others. That, it turns out, is what makes me smile the brightest.

- Yolanda, Founder, The Hawkeye Group LLC

If five years as a web designer taught me anything, it’s that entrepreneurs are servants of the communities they build. Entrepreneurship isn’t just self-governance, it’s stewardship. The moment you register that LLC, it becomes bigger than you, and it’s bound to scale even larger than that.

Web design became my safety net. At its core, a website is a user interface built of vision, capability, and potential. Each website delivery came with ideas I never voiced: how the identity could move off-screen and into press, materials, social platforms — everywhere it was meant to live. It all sat on the tip of my tongue but I never spoke to it.

Vinyl Media was born in that silence. Not as a departure from web design, but as an expansion of it. A place where brands are not just built, but carried, where vision is translated across every touchpoint with intention, continuity, and care. Where strategy and design are held together, and clients are no longer handed potential and left alone with it.

God gifted me the vision of Vinyl Media in January of ‘25. Since then, I’ve been operating in a gray area, somewhere in between AxMarie Studios and Vinyl Media, between who I was and who I’m becoming.

This is me putting that season on record.

Vinyl Media - Coming Soon 3.07.2026

A New Era