McDonald's is known for having its marketers adapt the menu and advertising campaigns to local realities in every country. In Ukraine, they were no exception and conducted the Ukrainian Burger Season, designing promotional materials in an authentic style while avoiding clichés like embroidered shirts and flowers. To create banners and social media materials, they chose the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag and the beautiful Rutenia from the Shchedryk Foundation.

McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets 4-pieces box, 1995.

Prior to 1993, McDonald’s used a variety of typefaces for packaging and advertising purposes, but rarely was there any consistency in their use. During the 1970s and 1980s, commonly used fonts included:

• Cooper Black (food packaging and some commercials in the 1970s)
• ITC Kabel (various commercials and print applications)
• ITC Serif Gothic (1980s McNugget packaging and miscealleous print applications)
• Gill Kayo (1970s “You Deserve a Break Today” print advertisements)
• Raleigh (styrofoam and paper food packaging in the 1980s and early 1990s)
• Windsor (1970s breakfast print ads)

Beginning in 1993 and continuing throughout the 1990s, McDonald’s selected Bodega Sans, and began using it uniformly, across the majority of their print ads, TV commercials, in-store marketing, and food packaging. Tekton, in many cases, was used in a secondary capacity.

The above image shows packaging for the 1995 McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets meal, set in Bodega Sans Black. A number of additional in-use examples of Bodega Sans by McDonald’s are shown below.

This McDonald’s print ad likely is from 1997. It features the the tagline “Have you had your break today?”, which was used from 1995 to 1997. Multiple weights of Bodega Sans are used for the headline, and Tekton is used for the slogan at the bottom right.

1992 McDonald’s commercial, featuring the tagline “What you want is what you get.”, set in Bodega Sans. This tagline was used during a marketing campaign that ran from 1992 to 1995.

1994 McDonald’s commercial, featuring the tagline “What you want is what you get”, set in Bodega Sans.

McDonald’s food packaging used between 1995 and 2003.

McDonald’s French fries packaging from 1999. Bodega Sans is used for “Super Size”.

1994 McDonald’s commercial, set in Bodega Sans.

McDonald’s packaging for the Big Breakfast meal, from 1995. Bodega Sans is used.

Packaging for McDonald’s McFlurry ice cream, as seen in a 1998 commercial. Type is set in Bodega Sans Black, with a gradient and shadow applied by the designer.

A McDonald’s Happy Meal print ad from 1995, set in Bodega Sans, with some text in Helvetica.

A tray liner distributed in restaurants in 1988 comparing the nutritional value of a Quarter Pounder combo with several other uncanny-looking American dinners, which might be technically true based on calories-by-volume, but come on (look at those fries!). I'm reminded of that Calvin and Hobbes strip about sugary cereal:

CALVIN: Look, it says right on the box, "Part of a wholesome, nutritious, balanced breakfast."

HOBBES: And they show a guy eating five grapefruits, a dozen bran muffins...

Really nice use of ITC Kabel here that flexes its personality as a display face and its 1980s goofiness, bouncing off those glossy food photos with classic corporate flair. While this scan isn’t the highest resolution, it looks like Kabel is also being used to set the body text.

Breakfast

The McDonald’s website uses the corporate typeface Lovin’ Sans for all typography. Lovin’ Sans is a customized version of Process Type Foundry’s Colfax. It was adapted at Leo Burnett (a long-term communication partner of McDonald’s) with Brian Loehr’s involvement.

Deals

Menu

Dollar menu

Institutional

Homepage

A tray liner is a piece of paper that's placed between the tray and the foods you order. Here's one from 1981, used by Mc Donald's in the United States, from Jason Liebig’s stunning collection of McDonald’s items. The font in use is Eightball, a typeface without a credited designer, probably released in the early 1970s and available under different names at different manufacturers. This design uses the simpler alternates for a and g.

A fun old in-store promotional sign — this one is cardboard and would have been stood up on the counter. Featuring Shamrock Shake Leprechauns, of course. — Jason Liebig

This new advertising campaign – made by TBWA\Paris that has been working with McDonald's since 1985 – celebrates the Big Mac's 50th anniversary. Each of these five decades is depicted by staged photographs that seek to be the ultimate cliché.

Each of those photos show a Big Mac, but there is no logotype or brand to be seen. The slogan is always “Indemodable Big Mac” [note the missing accent aigu in Indémodable]. The text is set in all-caps FF DIN Condensed Black, with ‘Big Mac’ smaller than ‘Indemodable’ (which means “Timeless” in English). I suppose that, by hiding the logo of the brand and making ‘Indemodable’ such a big word, the goal is to make the Big Mac a common word and not a proper name as if it was a heritage product. This may be caused by the fact that in France McDonald's is no longer the only fast-food burger brand, there are more and more concurrents.

The choice of the typeface is interesting because contrary to the photos that depict their decades, (FF) DIN seems to be relevant for each of those decades. As a result the font in itself says that it is ‘Indémodable’.

The poster campaign is followed by a social-network campaign that allows users to see how they could look in the different decades of the Big Mac.

Cookie box, 1975

Cookie packaging from McDonaldland, “a fantasy world used in a large collection of McDonald’s commercials from 1971 to 2003, featuring a magical world setting inhabited by many quirky characters. They vary from clowns, animals and strange creatures, to food items.” (McDonald’s Wiki)

The front of the box with the “convenient handle” shows Ronald McDonald and his gang: Captain Crook, Officer Big Mac, Mayor McCheese, and Hamburglar. The type is Hoopla, an amorphous film typeface that probably originated at Lettergraphics. PLINC’s earlier (?) Scorpio from 1968 is virtually identical, except for its slightly boxier bottoms in C or S.

Over on Flickr, Jason Liebig (@CollectingCandy) has shared several cookie box images from his astonishing collection of vintage packaging, including an evolution chart featuring the boxes from 1972, 1974, and 1975, and a full timeline from 1972 to 1987 — showing that Hoopla was around at least since 1972.

Flattened cookie box, 1972

In-store plastic sign, 1974, featuring another bottom-heavy typeface, Orbit, which also had a doppelgänger (precursor?) from PLINC, known as Village.

From Jason Liebig on Flickr:

A McDonalds sticker from the 1970's, extolling the virtues of cheeseburgers. This came to me from Australia, so I'm assuming that's where it was originally distributed.

The type is set in Folio, using the straight-legged alternate R as offered by Bauer.

The text of the sticker transcribed:

Choosey cheese choosers always say cheese please when they choose the cheese in the cheeseburgers at McDonald’s.

Banana shakes at McDonald’s circa 1976. VGC’s Eightball delivers the message, featuring a few alternate characters. Looks pretty tasty!

“Ye Golden M” — in mounted metal letters from Libra, S.H. de Roos’ uncial designed for Lettergieterij Amsterdam in 1938. Spotted in Regensburg, Bavaria, by Andreas Maxbauer.

From Creative Review:

The ad is the work of DDB Stockholm. It makes the menu items the stars (and of course Big Mac the headline act). Unusually for this kind of client, it is purely typographic with no product shots and no distinctive McDonald's yellow and red colour scheme.

From Look, September 7, 1971. The main copy here serves as the tagline to these 1971 ads. This may show an evolution of the ad campaign, though I’m not sure which was first.

Advertising Agency: Arnold, Boston, USA
Chief Creative Officer: Pete Favat
Executive Creative Director: Roger Baldacci
Creative Director: Chris Edwards
ACD/Art Director: Randy Rogers
ACD/Copywriter: Pete Shamon