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In this issue:

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Imagine internship season just ended.

You worked on something genuinely interesting: a feature that shipped, a complicated internal tool, a client project, or a product that is still in stealth. You had real constraints, real stakeholders, and problems you could not have invented in a portfolio brief.

Now you want to put it in your portfolio. Then you remember the NDA.

For many junior designers, that is where the project disappears. They assume they cannot show the screens, so they show nothing at all.

I think that is often a mistake.

An NDA can absolutely limit what you are allowed to share. You should take that seriously. But it does not always mean the project has no place in your portfolio. It may mean the format needs to change.

A lot of people sign an NDA, confidentiality clause, IP assignment, or client agreement without really understanding what it covers. That is normal. These documents are not written to be easy to read.

But “I signed an NDA” is not yet an answer to questions like whether you can name the company, say you worked on the project, show a feature that is now public, create a password-protected case study, or discuss the work in an interview.

The answer depends on the specific agreement, the company, the project, and sometimes the timing.

Use the Open Doors NDA Portfolio Advisor to get a practical first read on what your agreement may mean. You can also use tools like Claude or ChatGPT to translate confusing language into plain English.

But treat both as a starting point, not legal advice. When something is unclear, ask the company.

I have seen many designers assume they could show nothing—only to ask their manager and discover that an anonymised overview, approved public screens, or a private case study was completely possible.

The mistake is thinking the choice is:

There are usually four better options:

Let’s go through them.

Sometimes a product is fully public. You worked on Instagram, Spotify, or another product anyone can download and use. Maybe the feature you helped design has already shipped.

That can make the conversation easier. But public availability is not automatic permission. Your agreement may still limit what you can say about your role, what internal context you can share, whether you can name the company, or which parts of the feature you can connect to your work.

Still, it is worth asking.

Sometimes the answer is that you can show the work if you obscure the company name, product name, or identifying details. This is especially useful when a company is in stealth, working in a sensitive space, or protecting a new product direction.

You may not be able to name the company. But a hiring manager can still understand the kind of problem you worked on, your contribution, and why it mattered.

Maybe you cannot publish a rich case study full of screens, research, internal metrics, strategy, or implementation detail. That does not mean you need to hide the project completely.

A lighter overview can include the broad problem the team was trying to solve, the type of users involved, your role and ownership, one or two high-level decisions, the constraints you worked within, and what you learned.

Do not casually include sensitive numbers, unreleased plans, customer information, internal research, or details that would make the company uncomfortable. Think less about documenting everything and more about showing enough evidence that the work existed and that you had a meaningful role in it.

A short, honest project card is much stronger than pretending the internship never happened.

A password-protected case study can be a good solution when a company allows you to share work with a limited audience. It lets you build a proper story and share it with people who are permitted to see it—perhaps specific hiring managers, recruiters, or interviewers.

But a password does not override an NDA. If you are not allowed to share the work, putting it behind a password does not suddenly make it okay.

Do not treat password protection as a loophole. Treat it as one possible format to discuss with your manager or the person responsible for the work. If they are open to it, get the guidance in writing: what can be included, what needs to be hidden, who may see it, and whether the final case study needs review.

This is the option people underestimate most. Maybe you cannot show any direct screenshots from the product. Fine.

You can still create visuals yourself that explain your thinking without revealing confidential interfaces or product details:

The goal is not to make fake product screens and pass them off as the real work. The goal is to make the project understandable.

That is still evidence. And real work with limited visuals is often more convincing than a beautifully polished fictional project with no real constraints behind it.

If you are unsure what you can show, ask the company. Especially at a smaller company, the person who managed you may be able to give clear guidance, ask someone internally, or help you put together a safe version.

Do not assume the answer will be no. And do not assume it will be yes. The point is to replace guessing with clarity.

When you cannot show much visual work, other kinds of proof become more important.

A manager quote can help. So can a testimonial, a short written recommendation, a link to a public product, a description of the project’s scope, or a clear explanation of what you personally owned.

That tells me much more than a hidden project title ever could.

You might not be able to show every screen. You might not be able to tell the entire story publicly. You might need a lighter overview, an anonymised version, a password-protected case study, or no direct product visuals at all.

But do not automatically leave the project out.

Make people aware that it exists. Explain what you can. Show the evidence you are allowed to show. Then, if an interview goes well, you can talk about the work responsibly and add more context where appropriate.

Your internship was real. The constraints were real. The decisions were real.

That experience is still worth more than nothing.

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Sophia Liu’s portfolio feels unusually mature. She puts the work first, removes anything that might compete with it, and adds personality through small moments of play.

Her case studies cover product work for names including Robinhood and Cloaked, alongside mobile and interactive museum projects. Some are protected by NDA, yet the public page still gives hiring teams plenty to work with.

There is a lot to learn from how Sophia edits her work and guides people through it, so let’s take a closer look at what makes this portfolio work so well.

That’s it for this week—thanks so much for the support! ♥️

Do you want your own portfolio reviewed in-depth with a 30-minute advice-packed video portfolio review? Look no more. I do offer these as an async service you can book directly with me here.

Keep kicking doors open and see you next week!
- Florian