So they closed the Pennsylvania "design department" at the company (AT&T) I was working for as a web designer as of yesterday. So I'm trying to determine a fresh way to not necessarily re-brand myself, but to make myself look more appealing to potential employers. I was considering creating a website for myself separate from my freelancing and posting actual employment related design I have done.

I do have a slight problem where the work I did for AT&T (15 websites) I don't believe I can post on the internet in a portfolio as technically they are property of AT&T themselves (and not their clients oddly enough). The other problem with it is after I created them they made some gawd-awful changes so meet some of their oddball specs (and things design-wise that make me cringe)...But I have my original work saved.

I was thinking maybe create a password protected portfolio on this new website that could not be spidered by search engines to sort of hide the fact that I have these websites and am using them to acquire employment? I was also thinking of creating a sort of disk to mail out with my resume the included example websites...But I'm not exactly sure how to manage that.

Comments/Suggestions?

You likely can't show the sites publicly, but maybe the password protected idea would be ok. You might want to hold off on showing those sites at all unless a potential employer asks to see them.

Is there anything in the sites that's never made public? Is anything about the sites secret? Intranet? You'd likely get in trouble showing private sites, password protected or not. If the sites are public I would think it's ok to let others know you were a part of the design, though you probably can't take credit for the sites on a freelance portfolio.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. If a potential employer requests to see samples I can provide them access to the password protected area. This would be a completely separate website from my freelance, sort of a resume website for an employer as a potential employee.

The sites are public (or shortly will be), but I do not want association with the changes they made to them. I want credit for the work I did for AT&T, but not the end product that was posted (they made some pretty icky changes that I want no part of).

A lot of designers' portfolios I see don't actually link to the websites, but rather just show an image of the design.

I think this may be the route to take?

The reason why I don't like doing that is because it doesn't show that you're capable of actually programming and making the website function. Potential employers like to see what you can do. Perhaps that is an option for the website, but make a note on the page that to view the work in a functional state, contact me.