No-frills logo for Ontario Cannabis Store met with mixed reviews

The new logo for the Ontario Cannabis Store is seen here.

Ontario has revealed the name for its soon-to-be-legal marijuana dispensaries and the monochromatic branding is being dragged and simultaneously defended online.

The province revealed Friday that it will name its pot-selling agency the Ontario Cannabis Store, or OCS for short. The store’s logo is a minimalist, sans-serif design in black and white.

It’s a major departure from the design approach for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) logo, which includes a whimsical curlicue and, at one time, was superimposed over a picture of a grapevine.

In contrast, the OCS logo does not include any depiction of marijuana.

The team behind the branding said the design was intended to convey a “safe, simple and approachable environment.”

“We are confident the brand name and logo will help ensure Ontarians are able to safely and easily identify Ontario Cannabis Stores as the sole legal retailer of non-medical cannabis in Ontario,” the team said in a statement.

That simple approach was met with both ridicule and praise on Twitter, where “Ontario Cannabis Store” was trending across Canada by mid-afternoon. Some social media users suggested that the design was purposefully boring.

But some suggested that the haters were going a bit overboard.

Others even expressed admiration for the logo.