The red-and-yellow symbol formed by McDonald’s two arches is called the Golden Arches.
The name began with the large yellow arches used on early McDonald’s restaurant buildings. Their height and bright color helped passing motorists spot the restaurants, giving the architecture a practical advertising role.
In 1962, the two arches were combined into a stylized M for a corporate logo. The resulting mark retained the visual memory of the buildings while becoming easier to reproduce on signs, packaging, uniforms, and other branded materials.
The Golden Arches are not the same thing as the McDonald’s wordmark or the restaurant’s mascot characters. They are the company’s principal graphic symbol, and their meaning comes from both the original architecture and the later logo design.