McDonald's introduced the redesigned Golden Arches logo shaped like an “M” in 1962.
Earlier McDonald's restaurants used large yellow arches as part of their building design. In 1962, designer Jim Schindler combined the two arches into a single graphic symbol. The result looked like a rounded capital “M” and became a recognizable sign of the growing restaurant chain.
This change mattered because a logo could be reproduced in many places beyond a restaurant facade. It could appear on paper wrappers, cups, signs, employee clothing, and advertisements while preserving a consistent identity. The arches therefore became both a literal reference to the buildings and an abstract corporate mark.
The 1962 date is distinct from 1953, when the architectural arches first appeared, and from 1968, when a further logo refinement was introduced. Those dates describe different stages in the same branding story.