Who designed the McDonald’s restaurant buildings that first featured the golden arches in 1953?

Stanley Clark Meston designed the McDonald’s restaurant buildings that first featured the golden arches in 1953.

Meston was an architect working with McDonald’s during the company’s early period of restaurant standardization. He developed a design in which tall yellow arches rose above the building, making the restaurant easy to identify from the road and giving it a strong visual profile.

Meston is sometimes confused with Jim Schindler, who later created the two-dimensional golden “M” logo by combining the arches. The two men therefore contributed to different stages of McDonald’s visual identity: Meston to the architecture and Schindler to the logo.

The arches became much more than decorative building elements. Their bright color, repeated shape, and visibility at roadside distances helped McDonald’s build a consistent identity across locations. Over time, the architectural arches were simplified into the emblem recognized globally today.