In reporting, disclosures matter. But they’re only half the equation. Design and communication determine whether your message truly lands, earns trust and stays with your audience. Pairing credible disclosures with visual clarity, impact and intuitive information design is where reporting moves beyond compliance and becomes meaningful.
But strong design and disclosure rigour don’t have to compete. Many teams have traditionally balanced the two by moving content out of Workiva later in the reporting process to apply design. Today, Workiva’s latest in‑platform designed reporting capabilities, combined with specialist Workiva artwork and design expertise from Flag, have opened up another option: allowing teams to keep design roll-out and report production inside the same secure, collaborative environment where content lives.
How designed reporting works in Workiva
Designed reporting in Workiva is best understood as production on-platform, rather than design development. Creative concepting, visual direction and layout decisions are still developed off-platform using professional design tools before being carefully translated into Workiva.
Workiva provides a reliable set of production tools for accurately replicating approved designs within an audit-ready reporting environment. Teams can position text boxes, charts and imagery using flexible layout controls, apply brand colour palettes and typography, and configure full-page backgrounds and print bleed for professional-grade outputs. SVG image support ensures crisp graphics without compromising performance.
These features allow reporting teams to recreate complex layouts, often developed in tools like Adobe InDesign, directly in Workiva. While Workiva isn’t a graphic design tool, it works extremely well as a technical production environment, capable of supporting sophisticated design treatments while maintaining governance, auditability and control at the same time.
Design systems that evolve without losing impact
One of the biggest advantages of producing reports in-platform is the ability to apply approved design directly within your audit-ready reporting environment. Rather than applying design outside the platform later in the process, final designs can be implemented in Workiva alongside content, data and governance as these are finalised and approved. This keeps reporting workflows robust without compromising design quality.
Producing reports in-platform also provides a stronger foundation for how design can be managed over time, without diminishing the value of bespoke design where it matters most. High-quality reports continue to rely on thoughtful creative direction, bespoke layout design and carefully considered visual storytelling, particularly for flagship publications and high-impact pages that need to build trust, engage key stakeholders or communicate shifts in strategy, performance or priorities.
Where core design systems remain relatively consistent from year to year, implementing an agreed design framework in Workiva can help teams carry that foundation forward across reporting cycles. Style guides, navigation patterns, chart styles and page templates can be reused and refined, reducing unnecessary rework while still allowing for intentional design updates as content and priorities evolve.
Workiva’s roll-forward functionality builds on this by allowing users to carry forward document structure, formatting, linked charts, XBRL tags and data relationships from prior periods. For documents where layout and styling don’t change significantly year to year, such as recurring, heavily templated disclosures, this can provide a practical starting point. While the roll-forward itself happens at the push of a button, design updates still need to be considered and applied within Wdesk to ensure future reports reflect any changes in structure, content or styling. Changes to the creative concept, page hierarchy or content, including new or revised sections, still need careful artwork and layout work, as they would in any reporting software.
By producing content and artwork in-platform teams can balance control and efficiency, and benefit from:
- real-time collaboration across geographies
- live data linking for tables and charts
- auditability and version control built into every step.
Delivering design-led, audit-ready reporting
Flag combines report design expertise with deep Workiva platform knowledge to help organisations create reports that are both visually compelling and robust. We design first, developing clear, considered visual systems and layouts, then carefully translate those designs into Workiva so reports are produced on-platform with precision and control.
Our approach keeps design, data and governance aligned, reducing risk while improving efficiency, consistency and auditability across reporting cycles, without compromising the quality, creativity or impact of report design.
See what modern report design looks like in Workiva
Explore how in-platform design can support your next reporting cycle. Contact us at info@flag.co.uk to request a short walkthrough and see how compelling designs and robust disclosures can work together inside Workiva.
