With this column, we introduce the Visual Thesaurus' newest columnists, Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner of Editorial Emergency! Read our recent interview with Simon here.

We brand ourselves. It's what human beings do. Whether we wish to conform to some social or cultural norm (the traditional blue button-down worn by generations of IBM programmers) or stand out as rugged individualists (the prescription bottle in the earlobe hole of a kid I saw on a Los Angeles sidewalk), we are forever distinguishing ourselves.