McDonald’s branding history calls the restaurant’s famous yellow arches the Golden Arches.
The arches began as architectural features rather than a standalone corporate logo. Architect Stanley Clark Meston designed the distinctive yellow arches for McDonald’s restaurants in the early 1950s, and the first arches appeared at a McDonald’s location in Downey, California, in 1953.
The arches were later combined into the recognizable “M” symbol. This created a visual identity that could be recognized from a distance, especially by motorists. A common mix-up is to assume the Golden Arches began as a purely graphic logo; their earliest role was as part of the restaurant buildings themselves. The symbol eventually became one of the world’s most recognizable corporate marks.