McDonald’s yellow arches symbol is called the Golden Arches.
The arches began as architectural features of McDonald’s restaurants in the 1950s. Architect Stanley Clark Meston designed the buildings, while the arches were developed as prominent visual elements that could be seen from the road. Their shape helped restaurants stand out in the growing drive-in market.
The arches later moved from architecture into corporate identity. By the 1960s, the overlapping arches had become a logo and a powerful shorthand for McDonald’s, even when no full restaurant building was visible.
The Golden Arches are sometimes described as though they were created first as a logo. Historically, the physical arches came before their major use as a standalone graphic symbol. Their later branding role transformed an architectural feature into one of the world’s most recognizable marks.