The McDonald's restaurant symbols that inspired its famous logo are called the Golden Arches.
The arches began as architectural features on McDonald's restaurants in the 1950s. Architect Stanley Clark Meston designed the distinctive forms for the new restaurant buildings, where they helped make locations visible from the road.
The arches were initially separate structures on opposite sides of a building. Over time, the two shapes were combined into the familiar letter M, turning an architectural feature into one of the world's most recognizable corporate symbols.
The logo is often called the Golden Arches because of its yellow-gold color, although the exact design has changed over the decades. The symbol became more important than the original restaurant architecture as McDonald's expanded internationally.