Stanley Meston designed the early McDonald's restaurant buildings that inspired the Golden Arches.
Meston worked with his assistant Charles Fish to create the architectural form used for McDonald's restaurants in the 1950s. The buildings featured large yellow arches on either side of the structure, making the restaurants visible from roads and giving them a distinctive silhouette. Their purpose was architectural and commercial at the same time.
The arches were not initially conceived as the corporate logo seen today. They were physical elements of the restaurant design, often accompanied by a streamlined roadside form associated with postwar American drive-in culture. McDonald's later transformed that architectural feature into a graphic identity.
Jim Schindler is the person generally credited with combining the two arches into the modern logo in 1962. That is why Meston and Schindler are both linked to the Golden Arches, but for different stages: Meston designed the buildings, while Schindler created the logo adaptation.