Looks and Style

So I'm a broke college student studying computer science. I picked up html/css/php/python on my own time, as my past time seems to be learning. I also know c++, C, haskell, lisp, ruby, Go, and some other languages. However, markets in need of those skills seem to be much more prevalent to those who already have degrees and experience. I'm only finishing up my freshman year.

I'm also familiar with apache/unix servers.

The one thing I'm not good at is art. I just seem to have a nack for putting colors that don't match together.

However, I see web development as a way for make a couple of dollars while trying to pay off my monstrous tuition.

All that being said, my question is simply is there a way I can legally and professionally use others style templates then adapt them to a clients requests.

I'm fairly sure that this would be legal if I were to offer compensation for premade templates, however, does this seem like a legitimate business model? I don't want to offer something to a client which I can not provide.

Any suggestions or ideas will be greatly appreciated as well.


Thank you for your time and effort,


cs_student

You don't want to "duplicate" a website's design completely. That's not ethical in my opinion. But, you can "borrow" ideas.

There are also many free templates available, just google free css template and you'll find a ton. You should also be clear with your future clients that you are a web developer, not a web designer, so you will not be giving them the professional quality graphics they'd get from a designer. The best-case scenario is you find a designer to work with so you can offer the complete solution to your clients.

you are authorized to customize free templates. these are not copywrite protected. however it is illegal to steal the source code of any template or use the null version with your modifications.

but this is the fact that approximately 80% designers and developers do this illegal work

Approximately 80%? And where did you get this number, other than out of thin air?