Architect Stanley Meston designed the original yellow arches for McDonald's first purpose-built restaurant in Downey, California.
Meston worked with sign designer Charles Fish to develop the building's distinctive roadside appearance in 1953. The arches were architectural features rather than a logo: two large yellow structures rose from the sides of the restaurant and were meant to attract passing motorists.
The Downey restaurant was built for the McDonald brothers and is now preserved as the oldest surviving McDonald's restaurant. Its design shows how early fast-food branding depended on visibility, repetition, and recognizable roadside shapes before modern digital identity systems existed.
Jim Schindler later transformed the two physical arches into the unified Golden Arches emblem in 1962. Because the same visual element appears in both stages, Meston and Schindler are often mistakenly given the same credit.