Jim Schindler adapted McDonald's two architectural arches into the familiar M-shaped logo in 1962.
The original arches were physical features of McDonald's restaurant buildings. Schindler, an engineering and design consultant associated with the company, combined their visual forms into a single graphic emblem. The resulting symbol turned a building detail into a compact corporate mark.
This change was important because a logo could appear on packaging, signs, uniforms, advertising, and company documents, not only on the restaurant itself. The arches therefore became a flexible branding device as McDonald's expanded.
The logo's origin is sometimes simplified into the claim that the M was merely the first letter of McDonald's. In fact, its form came from the restaurant architecture. Stanley Clark Meston designed the earlier building arches, while Schindler is credited with their graphic adaptation.