The McDonald’s restaurant prototype designed by Stanley Meston in 1953 featured the Golden Arches.
Meston designed the landmark restaurant in Downey, California, using two large yellow arches as prominent architectural elements. The arches were initially part of the building’s roadside design, intended to attract motorists and make the restaurant easy to recognize.
Over time, the architectural arches became simplified into the familiar “M” logo used by McDonald’s. This evolution explains why the term can refer both to physical restaurant architecture and to the company’s central symbol.
The 1953 prototype is sometimes confused with the 1962 logo redesign. The building design came first; the recognizable logo treatment developed later as McDonald’s converted the arches into a graphic mark.