Who designed the Golden Arches that became McDonald's most recognizable symbol?

Stanley Clark Meston designed the Golden Arches that became McDonald's most recognizable symbol.

Meston was an architect hired in the early 1950s to develop a distinctive restaurant design for McDonald's. Working with architectural draftsman Charles Fish, he turned the brothers' original golden side arches into a highly visible roadside feature.

The arches were not initially intended as a standalone corporate logo. They were architectural elements built into the restaurant's side walls and visible from passing traffic. Their bright color and unusual shape helped distinguish McDonald's buildings from competing drive-in restaurants.

A later logo revision combined the two arches into the familiar letter-like “M.” That change made the architectural feature useful even when no restaurant building was visible. Meston is sometimes confused with Jim Schindler, who designed the later unified logo, but they played different roles in the symbol's development.