A client project is often the most persuasive work you have. Real constraints, real deadlines, real people paying for the outcome. It is also the work you are least free to publish. Faced with an NDA, most people do one of two things: they leave the project out altogether, or they post a screenshot and hope nobody notices. Neither is a good answer. There is a middle path, and it is wider than it looks.
Read the agreement before you assume anything
Not all confidentiality clauses are the same. Some cover everything you saw and made; others cover only specific deliverables, or only the period before a public launch. Find the clause and read it slowly, then look for carve-outs. Information that is already public, or that the client has approved for release, usually sits outside the restriction.
Then check your own contract for a portfolio clause. Many client agreements include one that permits showcasing the work after a set date, or with written consent. If you cannot find it, ask — a short email to your client contact is cheap. If the wording is genuinely ambiguous and the stakes are high, take it to a solicitor before you publish. This is not legal advice, and contracts are worth a professional read when money or reputation is on the line.
Anonymise without gutting the work
Anonymising is not just deleting the logo. It means removing the identifying details while keeping the substance that makes the piece worth reading. In practice, that usually means editing several layers at once:
- Client name becomes a sector descriptor: "a regional logistics firm", "a heritage food brand".
- Logos, brand colours and trademarked typefaces get neutral substitutes.
- Real customer data, prices and internal figures become clearly invented placeholders.
- Dashboard screenshots are rebuilt with dummy numbers rather than blurred.
- Dates shift, or drop to a season and year.
- File names, captions and image metadata are checked — acme-final-v3.png gives the game away just as fast as a wordmark.
What you keep is the setting, the constraint, the decision and the outcome. "A membership platform with roughly 40,000 users and a checkout that lost people at step three" tells a reader plenty without naming anyone. Where exact numbers are sensitive, describe the change proportionally — conversion improved by about a fifth — and say so.
Ask for permission properly
Clients say yes more often than you would expect, provided you ask well. Two things make the difference: timing and specificity. Ask while the work is still fresh and the people who hired you are pleased with it, not eight months later when the team has changed.
Then make the request narrow enough to approve. "Would you be comfortable with me publishing three images and 400 words about the approach? No admin screenshots, no figures, no mention of the rebrand" is far easier to agree to than "can I put this in my portfolio?" Offer to send them the draft before it goes live, and give them room to say yes to part of it. If the answer is no, ask what they would be comfortable with — sometimes it is just the logo, or a delay until launch.
Lead with process, not the finished artefact
This is the workaround that survives even near-total confidentiality, because the value sits in the method rather than the client's name. A process-led case study can be published with almost no client-specific detail. A structure that holds up:
- The problem as you understood it, stripped of names.
- The constraints: budget, timeline, legacy systems, competing stakeholders.
- Two or three options you considered, and why you ruled them out.
- The decision you made and what it cost you.
- What happened afterwards, described in general terms.
- What you would do differently next time.
That last point is worth more to a reader than a polished shot of the final screen. It shows judgement, and judgement is what a prospective client is really buying. You can also publish the thinking artefacts — a blank wireframe template, your research script, a checklist you use on every project. Those belong to you, they demonstrate how you work, and sharing them rarely breaches anything.
When you can show nothing at all
Some projects genuinely cannot be described: regulated industries, unreleased products, anything under active dispute. In that case, you have a few honest options. Write about the sector in general terms, using what you learned without disclosing a specific engagement. Put the same craft on display in a self-initiated project that runs alongside it. Or keep a single-line credit if permitted — "Client work, 2023, financial services" — with no further detail.
You can also simply leave it out. A portfolio with eight strong pieces does not need a ninth, and a gap is not a weakness.
A short checklist before you publish
Run this every time you prepare a client piece, even when you are sure you are fine:
- Locate the confidentiality clause and any portfolio clause. Read both.
- List every identifying detail in the draft: names, logos, figures, screenshots, testimonial lines, file names, alt text.
- Strip or substitute each one.
- View images at full size and check the metadata. Blur that can be reversed, or a stray file path in the EXIF data, undoes the whole exercise.
- Send the draft to your client contact with a clear choice: yes, no, or yes with edits.
- Save the approval somewhere you can find it — a dated email, a PDF, a folder.
Confidentiality is not the enemy of a good portfolio. It simply forces you to be deliberate about what you show and why. The projects you cannot name can still demonstrate how you think, and how you think is the part a client remembers. Do that well, and the missing logo stops mattering.
Photo: Mypixhell / Pixabay
