Who designed the original McDonald's restaurant arches as architectural features in 1952?

Stanley Clark Meston designed the original McDonald's restaurant arches as architectural features in 1952.

Meston was an architect working with McDonald's when the company was developing a more distinctive restaurant format. His design placed large yellow arches at the sides of the building, making the restaurants visible from passing traffic and giving them a memorable silhouette.

The arches were not initially created as a letter M logo. They were physical elements of the restaurant design, alongside the building's streamlined shape and red-and-white color scheme. Their later importance came from the way the two arches appeared to merge visually into an M.

Jim Schindler is associated with the later graphic refinement of the Golden Arches logo, while Ray Kroc was the company's major franchising figure rather than the architect. This distinction explains why McDonald's branding history includes both an architectural origin and a later corporate-logo development.