The web has changed the way that creatives do business.

Where once an artist would spend years finding a gallery to show his work, Flickr allows his vision to reach from Michigan to Milan in a matter of minutes. Where once a musician would spend months praying that her demo reached the ear of the right A&R scout, now MySpace and GarageBand allow her to reach anyone, anywhere across the world.

From Film to Invention, for better or for worse, the web has become the great dis-intermediator, blowing open the doors to global markets for the masses.

Ophelia Chong

The case I wanted to speak about today was particularly interesting in that the artist (Ophelia Chong) is completely non-digital. When I asked her how she put her work together, she told me, “I created the artwork for CSS using the Vandercook Letterpress, one sheet at a time, all hand set type. The type used was wood display type, and the ink hand mixed.”

That’s right, she used the spiritual descendant of Gutenberg’s Printing Press.

Ophelia’s work will be appearing later this year on a DVD by Andy Clark, but more interesting still by allowing it out on the web she has given hundreds, if not thousands of people who may never have had the luck of finding her the opportunity to sample her work.

Any good marketer will tell you sometime a sample is all you need to make a sale.

First, take a few moments to enjoy some of Ophelia’s work. Next I want to know, what use do you think the web has for the artists and creatives working on it? On top of that, what challenges do you think they face?

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