Who designed McDonald’s first modern logo, introduced in 1962?

Jim Schindler designed McDonald’s first modern logo, introduced in 1962.

Schindler’s design joined the two golden arches into the recognizable “M” shape associated with McDonald’s. The arches had originally been architectural features of some early restaurant buildings, but the 1962 logo transformed them into a compact graphic mark for signs, packaging, and advertising.

The logo helped McDonald’s move beyond identifying individual roadside restaurants. It created a consistent visual identity as the company expanded through franchising across the United States and later internationally. The arches were simplified further over time, eventually appearing without the original restaurant-building context.

A common mix-up is crediting architect Stanley Clark Meston with the logo itself. Meston designed the early California restaurant structures featuring the arches, while Schindler created the later logo based on that visual idea. Ray Kroc was the executive who drove the company’s expansion, not the logo’s designer.