Stanley Meston designed the 1950s McDonald's restaurant building that helped establish the chain's recognizable look.
Meston was an architect who worked with the McDonald brothers on a new restaurant design featuring red-and-white tile, a tall sign, and the now-famous yellow arches. The design made the restaurants visible from the road and gave expanding McDonald's locations a consistent architectural identity.
The arches originally functioned as physical parts of the building, not merely as a printed logo. Their strong silhouette helped motorists recognize the restaurants, while the standardized layout supported the company's fast-service operating model.
Meston is sometimes confused with Jim Schindler, who later converted the architectural arches into the modern graphic logo introduced in 1962. Ray Kroc was the key franchise and corporate expansion figure, but he was not the architect responsible for the 1950s building design.