Which architect designed the early McDonald’s restaurant buildings with giant yellow arches?

Stanley Clark Meston designed the early McDonald’s restaurant buildings with giant yellow arches.

Meston was commissioned to develop a recognizable restaurant design for Richard and Maurice McDonald. His work produced the Speedee Service System restaurant form, including the large golden arches rising at both sides of the building. The architecture was intended to attract passing motorists and make the restaurant easy to identify.

Those physical arches later became the inspiration for McDonald’s corporate logo. However, the building design and the later graphic logo were not exactly the same creation. Jim Schindler combined the two arches into a stylized “M” for the 1962 logo.

This distinction explains a common mix-up in McDonald’s branding history: Meston is associated with the architectural arches, while Schindler is associated with their graphic transformation. Both contributed to the visual identity that became central to the company.