McDonald's made the Golden Arches its official corporate logo in 1962.
The arches originated as architectural features on McDonald's restaurants. Architect Stanley Clark Meston designed the recognizable golden arches for the company's restaurant buildings in the 1950s. Their bold shape was intended to attract motorists and make the restaurants easy to identify from the road.
By 1962, McDonald's combined the two arches into the stylized golden “M” used as a corporate symbol. This change helped turn an architectural detail into one of the world's most recognizable commercial marks. The arches are often confused with the original restaurant signs, which used separate arch structures rather than the later unified logo.