The giant yellow M in McDonald’s branding is commonly called the Golden Arches.
The design developed from the architectural arches used at early McDonald’s restaurants. In the 1950s, architect Stanley Clark Meston designed distinctive golden arches for the San Bernardino-based restaurant buildings.
The arches were initially physical parts of the restaurant architecture rather than a standalone corporate symbol. As McDonald’s expanded, the two arches were combined into an M-shaped logo, making the design recognizable even without the restaurant name.
The phrase “Golden Arches” eventually became shorthand for McDonald’s itself. People sometimes confuse the original building features with the later logo: the architecture came first, while the familiar unified M developed afterward.