Decades ago I read something that said the chevron shaped tread on the top of the tire should point toward the front on the front wheel and toward the back on the rear wheel.

If a tire has a direction of rotation arrow, I honor that. Aside from that, I install the tire whichever way I think looks best. For example I like for the colored labels to be on the same side of the bike. Relative to performance, I think that it's real easy to overstate any benefit from tread direction.