Stanley Meston designed the early McDonald’s restaurant building with its distinctive yellow arches.
Meston was an architect hired to develop the restaurant design used by Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California. His 1950s design incorporated two large yellow arches on opposite sides of the building. From certain angles, the arches were especially prominent to motorists.
The architecture helped establish McDonald’s visual identity before the familiar joined-arches logo existed. The arches served a practical roadside purpose as well as a branding purpose: they made the restaurant easy to recognize from a distance.
People often confuse Meston’s role with Jim Schindler’s. Meston designed the building and its arches; Schindler later combined the arches into the stylized M-shaped logo introduced in 1962. The Golden Arches name refers to both the architectural forms and the later symbol.