Meet Guts: Strategy First, Design Second

At Guts Creative, the focus is on everything beneath the surface of a brand — purpose, vision, values, positioning. The thinking goes: if those foundations aren’t clear, marketing becomes expensive guesswork.

Their work sits mostly across health, environment, and education, often tackling projects that involve complex systems, multiple stakeholders, and big-picture change.

Stills from Daniel John’s ‘Going on 16’ music video

Right now, they’re working on:

• A full rebrand for a children’s hospital — including naming, brand architecture, research, and stakeholder consultation.

• A NSW Government water engagement strategy bringing together First Nations communities, environmental groups, and farmers.

• Helping Life Without Barriers shape and roll out its 10-year vision and strategy across 8,500 staff nationally.

The common thread? Projects that initially sound “too hard.”
That’s usually where Guts does its best work.

The images above span everything from early creative experiments — including a music video project for Daniel Johns nearly 11 years ago — through to large-scale strategy and community-led work happening today.

One final thing: their favourite projects are usually the ones built through collaborations inside The Roost Creative.