Being one of the choosen CMS (Content Management System) I choose to work on variation projects, a lot of time, client want a custom home page instead of the page that list only the recent entries.

The simplest way on changing the front page would be go into the setting page and set a page that you created as the front page.

However, custom home page may come in variation requirement too. Normally I would go for change the home page using PHP. Similar like the tagging keywords, the almighty if… else.

<?php if (is_home()) { ?>
<!-- Custom design and content -->
<?php } else { ?>
<!-- Post loop -->
<?php } ?>

However, both style have their own pro and con.

Setting a front page with WordPress settings doesn’t give you the abilities of custom design on the front page and it also limited the content. Since, it only shows the page you created on the “Pages”.

As for the if…else trick, you cannot have a specific posts pages, even if you set in the WordPress settings it will come back as the custom home page, because it is on the first page (is_home, right…).