Design History – Golden Arches

Did you know that McDonald’s® well know golden arches are a direct descendant of the American atomic age style?

America was a great place to be in the decade after WWII.   A low population coupled with a boom in manufacturing created a solid middle class with money to spend. New cars were driven out of the cities on new roads across the nation right into a new way of life called suburbia. And suburbia demanded a break from the past; suburbia wanted modern.

The Great Depression and both World Wars were over, people were now looking into a bright future. New machines that were colorful, sleek and time-saving took over homes and businesses giving rise to leisure time. Outrageous design came into play to draw the attention of the consumer who now had time to consider aesthetics over basic function. Some of the designs drew from a new frontier dawning on the horizon – outer space and the Atomic Age.

The Atomic Age fueled the imagination of a country which was now very mobile. Roadside eating establishments in California took to the look of the Atomic Age with gusto trying to lure customers with space age design. Organic, free-form curves and scientific linear angles merged into a stylized visual lexicon. 

The McDonald brothers had perfected the process of assembly line burger production in their original space age San Bernadino location. Their first franchise in Phoenix, Arizona featured an equally eye catching design where the arches were integrated into the building. The now famous arches were penciled into the building design by the McDonald brothers, against the architect’s wishes, possibly as a nod the the Googie style that was all the rage in California.

~ by badassdesignco on October 21, 2007.