The golden arches were originally part of McDonald's restaurant building design before becoming a corporate symbol.
Architect Stanley Meston designed the early McDonald's buildings with tall yellow arches on the sides. The arches helped make the restaurants conspicuous to passing motorists and gave the buildings a distinctive roadside silhouette.
In 1962, Jim Schindler converted the two architectural arches into a single stylized M for the company's logo. This was a major branding change because an element customers saw on the building became a portable graphic mark for signs, packaging, advertising, and corporate communication.
The arches are sometimes described as having been invented first as a logo. Historically, the physical structures came first. Their later combination into the Golden Arches logo is what made the shape one of the most recognizable symbols in global branding.