Which McDonald's symbol was originally built into the sides of restaurants before becoming a logo?

The Golden Arches were originally built into the sides of McDonald's restaurants before becoming a logo.

In the 1950s, architect Stanley Clark Meston designed large yellow arches as visible architectural features for McDonald's restaurant buildings. The arches were intended to attract motorists and make the restaurants identifiable from a distance. They were therefore part of the building's physical design before they became the company's most famous graphic symbol.

Jim Schindler later combined the two arches into the M-shaped logo in 1962. This transformed a roadside architectural feature into a portable brand mark that could be printed on signs, wrappers, cups, advertisements, and corporate materials. The symbol's meaning expanded from “this building is a McDonald's” to “this product or message belongs to McDonald's.”

The arches are sometimes described as having been invented as a logo from the beginning. That simplifies the history. Their first important use was architectural, and their later use as a logo is what made them globally recognizable.