Which company designed McDonald’s 1968 “M” logo with the arches joined at the bottom?

D’Arcy Advertising designed McDonald’s 1968 “M” logo with the arches joined at the bottom.

The redesign gave the Golden Arches a more unified and graphic appearance. Earlier versions could emphasize the two arch shapes separately, while the 1968 treatment made the symbol read clearly as a single letter M. This was useful as McDonald’s expanded its signage, packaging, and advertising systems.

The design belongs to the period when the company was turning a recognizable restaurant feature into a standardized corporate identity. A logo needed to work in many sizes and settings, from large roadside signs to small printed materials. The joined arches supplied a stronger silhouette than the earlier architectural treatment alone.

Jim Schindler is associated with the creation of the interlocking Golden Arches logo in 1962, which is why the two designers are sometimes conflated. D’Arcy Advertising’s role concerns the later 1968 refinement. The familiar mark has had further stylistic variations, but its core M shape comes from this evolution.