I think the jumping baseline has something to to with water. I actually think they did a rather good job organising such a long name visually. The mark is wierd though.

They have a building in my town, and the huge logo on it has been annoying the heck out of me for a while. I don't get the jumping baseline. To me this looks like three guys founded a serious-acting company together but the youngest of them is constantly acting the clown, giggling about stuff nobody else finds funny, and thinking he's so very special. The others are vaguely annoyed about him but then again, hey, he brings in "dynamism".

That, or horizontal kerning was getting boring. :-\

But LOL, I never realized the order is different in the black box. I might just start calling them PriceCaterhouseWoopers now.

Exactly. It's a bizarre effect, all jolly in the middle like that. I can kind of see why they've jiggled the letters to make the shapes fit into each other but I don't really dig the result.

LOL PriceCaterhouseWoopers ;D