Who designed McDonald’s 1962 logo, combining the restaurant’s arches into an “M”?

Jim Schindler designed McDonald’s 1962 logo, combining the restaurant’s arches into an “M.”

The design built on an earlier architectural idea. McDonald’s restaurants had used large yellow arches as eye-catching structural features, especially during the company’s early roadside expansion. Schindler adapted those separate arches into a unified graphic mark that could work on signs, packaging, and advertising.

This change helped turn the arches from a building feature into a corporate brand symbol. The wordmark and color treatments changed over subsequent decades, but the basic arch form stayed recognizable worldwide.

Stanley Clark Meston is often confused with Schindler because Meston designed the early McDonald’s restaurant buildings that prominently featured the arches. Ray Kroc was the executive who expanded the franchise system, while Fred Turner later became a major McDonald’s executive.