Who designed the first McDonald’s restaurant buildings that featured the famous yellow arches?

Stanley Clark Meston designed the first McDonald’s restaurant buildings that featured the famous yellow arches.

Meston was an architect working with McDonald’s in the 1950s, when the company was developing a highly visible roadside restaurant format. His design used two tall yellow arches as part of the building’s structure and exterior identity. The arches were intended to make the restaurants noticeable to passing motorists.

The arches were not initially created as the modern M-shaped logo. They appeared as separate architectural elements, one at each side of the building. Their strong color and repeated use helped make them a recognizable part of McDonald’s visual identity.

In 1962, Jim Schindler combined the two arches into the corporate mark known as the Golden Arches. This distinction matters: Meston is linked to the restaurant architecture, while Schindler is linked to the later logo redesign. Ray Kroc, by contrast, was the businessman who expanded the franchise system rather than the architect of the arches.