The Golden Arches were added to McDonald’s restaurants in 1952 as an architectural feature.
Architect Stanley Meston designed the early arches for the McDonald brothers’ new restaurant buildings. The arches were tall, curved, and yellow, rising at the sides of the restaurant structure so they could be seen by passing motorists.
At first, the arches were part of the building design rather than the company’s familiar standalone logo. Their visibility made them useful as roadside identifiers, and their shape later became the basis for McDonald’s corporate symbol.
The modern interlocking “M” was created later, in 1962, when Jim Schindler combined the two arches into one graphic mark. Thus, the architectural arches and the logo are closely related but are not exactly the same historical object. Their yellow color also helped make them visible and memorable from a distance.