Jim Schindler arranged two Golden Arches into the recognizable letter M used in McDonald's branding.
The Golden Arches started as separate architectural elements on McDonald's restaurants. Architect Stanley Clark Meston designed the original building concept, while draftsman Charles Fish worked on the plans. The later logo development transformed those physical arches into a simple graphic mark that could work on signs, packaging, advertisements, and corporate materials.
Jim Schindler is credited with the 1962 logo design that joined the two arches visually. The result was recognizable both as an “M” and as a reminder of the restaurants' distinctive buildings. That dual meaning helped the symbol travel effectively beyond the original roadside architecture.
A common mistake is to credit Meston with the entire logo. Meston designed the original arches as architecture; Schindler is associated with the graphic arrangement that made them a unified letterform. The logo subsequently underwent refinements, but its basic double-arch idea remained central to McDonald's identity.