Who designed the original McDonald's restaurant buildings that used the Golden Arches as architectural features?

Stanley Clark Meston designed the original McDonald's restaurant buildings that used the Golden Arches as architectural features.

Meston, working with assistant Charles Fish, developed the distinctive 1950s restaurant design for McDonald's. The buildings used large yellow arches on opposite sides of the structure, making the restaurants visible to passing motorists. The arches were architectural elements before they became the central symbol of the corporate brand.

The design combined roadside visibility with a recognizable building shape. When viewed from certain angles, the two arches appeared to overlap and form an M-like outline. McDonald's later transformed that architectural idea into a standalone logo, allowing the symbol to appear on signs, packaging, uniforms, and advertising even when no arch-shaped building was present.

Meston is sometimes confused with the person who created the later logo artwork. His key role was designing the restaurant architecture and its arches; the 1962 logo adaptation is associated with Jim Schindler.