Who designed McDonald's first nationally used Golden Arches logo in 1962?

Jim Schindler designed McDonald's first nationally used Golden Arches logo in 1962.

Earlier McDonald's restaurants used two separate yellow arches as part of their building designs. Schindler, an engineer and designer associated with the company, merged the arches into a single stylized “M,” creating a symbol that could work independently of the restaurant architecture.

This change was important because the arches could now appear on signs, packaging, advertisements, and corporate materials. The logo preserved the visual identity of the roadside buildings while making it portable across many formats.

The Golden Arches are sometimes credited entirely to architect Stanley Clark Meston, but Meston designed the restaurant building. Schindler is specifically associated with combining the two arches into the logo introduced in 1962.