McDonald’s famous Golden Arches logo uses yellow arches.
The arches became associated with McDonald’s restaurants after the company incorporated arch-shaped architectural features into early buildings. Their bright yellow color helped the signs stand out beside roads and become recognizable from a distance.
The logo is often described as a stylized letter M, although its visual origin was architectural rather than typographic. The arches were simplified into the familiar emblem during the early 1960s, when McDonald’s was developing a more consistent national identity.
People sometimes confuse the logo’s official description with the color commonly used in restaurant signs. “Golden” is part of the brand name, but the emblem is conventionally rendered in yellow rather than metallic gold. The red-and-yellow color combination later became one of the company’s most recognizable visual pairings.