Stanley Meston designed the McDonald's restaurant buildings that inspired the Golden Arches logo.
Meston was an architect based in Southern California. In 1952, he worked with artist Charles Fish on a new McDonald's restaurant design for Richard and Maurice McDonald. The buildings used two large yellow arches as striking architectural features at opposite sides of the structure.
The arches were initially part of the building, not simply a corporate emblem. Their visibility from the road helped restaurants stand out to passing motorists. McDonald's later combined the two arches into the familiar golden M-shaped symbol.
A common mix-up is crediting Ray Kroc with designing the arches. Kroc became central to McDonald's expansion, but the architectural concept came from Meston's restaurant design. Jim Schindler later created the recognizable merged-arches logo in 1962.