Who designed the original McDonald’s restaurant with its famous architectural arches?

Stanley Meston designed the original McDonald’s restaurant with its famous architectural arches.

Meston was an architect in Southern California who worked with the McDonald brothers on a highly visible restaurant design. The building used two large yellow arches on opposite sides of the structure, making the restaurant easy to recognize from the road.

The design appeared in the early 1950s, when roadside restaurants competed for the attention of motorists. Its bright colors, streamlined shape, and elevated arches helped establish a visual identity before McDonald’s had the modern corporate logo.

The architectural arches and the later Golden Arches logo are related but not identical. Jim Schindler later transformed the two physical arches into the overlapping “M” symbol introduced in 1962. Because both designs are associated with the same visual idea, Meston is sometimes incorrectly credited with the logo itself.