Which architect designed McDonald's original restaurant buildings with their distinctive arches?

Stanley Clark Meston designed McDonald's original restaurant buildings with their distinctive arches.

Meston was an architect whose design for the McDonald brothers incorporated tall yellow arches into the restaurant architecture. The arches were intended to make the buildings highly visible to passing motorists and to give the restaurants a memorable roadside profile.

The architectural arches came before the familiar corporate logo. Jim Schindler later adapted the two arches into the overlapping Golden Arches symbol used as McDonald's visual identity from 1962. Because the building and logo share the same name, the two designers are frequently mixed up.

The original design was especially suited to the postwar American roadside landscape, where restaurants competed for attention from drivers. The arches therefore began as practical signs and architectural features before becoming a globally recognized brand mark.