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I have just been watching a bit about the Olympics, while having lunch. They were talking about the young Chinese swimmer, Sun Yang who won the 400 metres with an amazing time. People are now questioning if such a performance could be genuine or from performance enhancing drugs.
I don’t know why, but it got me thinking – what if they did this with creatives and designers? What if you created the most amazing piece of work, your best so far, can you imagine if people questioned how you managed to do it?
Having never taken illegal drugs, i can’t say what the effects would be on me, but I have found that a few glasses of wine (not in the day 
) definitely helps the creative juices flow more easily, especially brainstorming for brand names. Who hasn’t seen a bizzarre advert, piece of art or film that makes you wonder – how on earth did they come up with that? Maybe it’s just the creative mind, but perhaps on occasions an additional stimulant has helped. We have all heard of music which has been inspired by experiences on drugs and gone on to help make the band a fortune.
The point of drugs testing for athletes is to try and make sure everyone is playing on a level playing field and not gaining financially/personally in an unfair manner. So is it right that drugs may enhance the performance financially of creatives and others outside the sporting arena?
Drug test before you present your next set of design visuals or advert ideas – maybe?
There’s my odd thought for the day – and all I have had is a cup of tea
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9 Comments
This is quite a funny blog post. I can’t see this happening in the near future though!
Must of the famous artists were off their heads. It’s just a way of making your mind relax and opening your eyes to the greater things in life :p
This is a great post to share……..
Agreed with all above. Interesting one. Maybe in future if the competition rises too high people will introduce this kind of test. However we would need to have olipmics in graphic design with competitions like design a brand identity in 12h or create a logo in 30 minutes
Than maybe for the fair chances of all of the participants it would be require to stay away from stimulants 
and don’t forget that coffee and tea is one of them 
Still as Alessio noticed most of the famous artists have experiment with different stimulatns
Hi Daniel – thanks for your thoughts. Oh dear I am drinking more legal stimulants today (tea), not sure it’s working too well today though
Great post, and a fair point!
If they do decide to start testing for substance abuse, my caffeine levels will be off the chart.
Hi Stephen, I think a lot of us would have the same problem
Tara
But what would you consider a stimulant, music could be considered a stimulant if it puts you in the mind to be creative, it’s not just caffeine or alcohol. However, if they did carry out drug testing on creative types, could you imagine the waiting room, it would almost certainly be heavily criticised!
Very true on the music thing – I like to listen to music or podcasts while I work too.