Which architect designed the original McDonald’s restaurant buildings with prominent side arches?

Stanley Clark Meston designed the original McDonald’s restaurant buildings with prominent side arches.

Meston was the architect responsible for the restaurant design developed for McDonald’s in the 1950s. The buildings used large yellow arches on each side, making the restaurants visible from the road and giving them a distinctive silhouette. The arches were architectural features before they became the company’s joined logo.

The design helped McDonald’s create a consistent physical identity as the business expanded through franchising. Customers could recognize the building from a distance, even before the corporate symbol was standardized in its later form.

Jim Schindler is the name associated with the 1962 logo that joined the arches into a stylized M. That division of credit is important: Meston designed the early restaurant architecture, while Schindler adapted the arches into the modern logo. Ray Kroc later drove national expansion but did not design the arches.