I was considering the same thing with our house which will be similar to the top photo. I think what we are planning on is walkway from the sidewalk to the front porch, and then have the front porch go all the way to the driveway, with a step or steps there, too. That way, a person could walk directly to the front door from the driveway or from the sidewalk, without having to walk on grass or walk around. If your front porch does not extend to the driveway, I suppose you would have to go from the driveway.

It would probably depend a great deal on the design of the house, front setback and distance to the driveway.

I think it too depends on how close your house is to the road and sidewalk. You don't want people to have to park in your driveway and walk backwards to the sidewalk to get to your front door.

Also, the other negative (which is a major one to me) of the walkway from the front door to the sidewalk is that it cuts your yard in half.

This may not be an issue if you don't have young children or expect them not to play in the front yard but our kids (3 boys) play sports in the front yard every day and that walkway would sure get in the way!

The natural path is from where the vehicles are parked to the front door. Figure out the former, and the latter will take care of itself. Whatever you do though, don't fight Mother Nature on that because then you will have traffic paths worn through your grass. I've seen that happen way too often when people like the look of the path to the street, but the guest parking is in the drive. People will just cut through the yard rather than walk all the way to the street.

It all depends on the placement of your house on your lot. The first photo appears to have a minimal front yard, while the second photo suggests a larger front yard. If the house was on several acres it would be an even different situation.

The design issue is how visitors and guests park, recognize where the entry to the house is and see the logical access path between parking and entry.

You and your family will almost always park in the drive or garage and enter the house from an entry other than the front.

So the challenge to be solved is how do you want to provide for guest parking, circulation and entry. In the first photo, most guests will park in the street, at the curb. In the second photo, from what we can see, guests will park in the driveway.

So where will they park in your property?

I have from the driveway to the front door. But, I'd prefer a hybrid--some sort of diagonal. Why?
1) our lot. We have a hill on our driveway.
2) when I park my car in my driveway instead of the garage, I get out, walk around the back of the car (rather than the front) and then have to walk up the side of the car in the wedge of driveway between the car and grass to get to my sidewalk. It is all very cramped feeling. If the sidewalk met my driveway at the rear of my car, instead of the nose of my car, it would just feel more comfortable and less "squishy".

So, I would ask the question, when you or a guest parks in your driveway, in relation to the garage and your lawn, where does it feel comfortable to walk? That is where I'd put the path.

We put ours from our driveway...people from the street can still enter from the driveway, but the vast majority park in our drive already anyway so from the driveway makes sense.

We have ours from the sidewalk to the front door. Our neighborhood is about 60/40 in favor of driveway to front door - though we all have the same 40ft front setbacks. I did notice that those with detached garages (and thus one car driveways) were more likely to have the path to the sidewalk. Maybe because their guests are more likely to park in the street?