Which designer created the original McDonald's restaurant buildings with the large roadside arches?

Stanley Clark Meston created the original McDonald's restaurant buildings with the large roadside arches.

Meston was the architect responsible for the distinctive 1950s McDonald's building design developed for the company's early expansion. The structures used two sweeping yellow arches rising above the restaurant, making the locations visible from the road and giving the business a strong architectural identity.

Those arches were not initially a single “M” logo. They were physical elements of the building, functioning as bold roadside signs as well as decorative architectural features. In 1962, graphic designer Jim Schindler combined the arches into the interlocking symbol that became the modern Golden Arches logo.

This history creates a common mix-up: Meston designed the architectural arches, while Schindler created the later graphic logo. Ray Kroc was the key figure in expanding McDonald's nationally, but he was not the architect of the original arch buildings.