The Ongoing Transformation of the McDonald's Logo - Ohio University

socially for groups and families, as well as being a leading fast food restaurant
throughout the world.
The colors chosen to represent McDonald’s are intentional. They produce
an object to incite action among their consumers (the interpretant). Goldstein’s
1942 research found that colors with longer wavelength, such as red, are seen
to arouse, as opposed to colors on with shorter wavelength like green. In
particular, the colors yellow and red are stimulants which engender expansive
and forceful behavior (Elliot & Maier, 2007). Hutchings (1997) also concedes
that a human’s natural response to color stimuli is similar to their nonhuman
counterparts, who are intrinsically guided to food by signal functions. In this
case, red – the color of fruit – triggers a readiness to eat. Another reason for the
color red in the logo (see Figures 2 and 3), is that the color red is associated with
happiness, and leads to such a cognitive process with the according behavior
(Soldat, Sinclair, & Mark, 1997).
Figure2: McDonald’s still uses the red trapezoid ‘roof’as a main component
of its signage
(Source: http://www.logodesignlove.com/images/simple-logos/mcdonalds
signage.jpg)
Similarly, both the colors red and yellow were proposed to be positive
colors by famous German poet Goethe (1982). Goethe considered red and
yellow as inciting happiness, joy, and optimism (Birren, 1961). In a branding
context, Chang and Lin (2010) found that participants in their study equated
yellow in a brand with joy, brightness, and warmth. Similarly, customer
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