McDonald's adopted its first logo featuring the Golden Arches as an M in 1962.
Before the arches became a logo, they were prominent physical elements of McDonald's restaurant architecture. The two curved forms were visible from the road and helped distinguish the buildings in an increasingly competitive roadside market.
In 1962, the arches were combined into a stylized M. That change gave McDonald's a flexible symbol for signs, packaging and advertising, even when the full restaurant design was not shown. The logo therefore connected the company's architecture with its broader corporate identity.
Later versions altered the relationship between the arches, the restaurant roofline and the surrounding lettering. Those revisions can cause confusion about which year represents the logo's first M form. The commonly cited starting point for that Golden Arches logo is 1962.