THINGS THAT GO UP AT THE END have more power and dynamism. It’s a rule that applies to music, film editing, graphics, and company names.

If a film editor is cutting a piece of film of someone on a swing, for instance, they’ll almost always cut away when the swinger is at the top of the swing, not at the bottom. It’s a more positive location at which to move to the next scene.

Here’s a piece of music – it’s the end of the theme from the Pearl and Dean cinema ads (and you can hear the full thing here):

Most of it is on one note, then it drops down in the middle before returning to that one note – and the final, exuberant Bup! right at the end. It’s that note which signals the end of the mini song.

Or take a look at the Nike Swish logo. The real logo is top left; the others are the same logo, rotated and flipped. Note how they have nothing like the power of the real one:

It’s the same with company names: Marks and Spencer has a tail on Spencer that lightens the name. Spencer and Marks comes to a dead end. Although arguably, Gabbana and Dolce is a better name than Dolce and Gabbana…