Literary Theory has taught us that words are signs made up of the signifier and the signified. As Ferdinand de Saussure said, “Nearly all institutions are based on signs, but these signs do not evoke things.” A reference is structuralism that cuts off the sign from the referent, making the world of linguistic rather material. As R.W. Gehl writes in Ladders, Samurai, Blue Collar, “Personal branding is popular because it supplies an individualized approach to dealing precarity, contingency, and uncertainty economics of the day.” Now more than ever our social and cultural values which are key to our own identity and personal brand can be represented in the everyday symbols we choose to represent. Your T-shirt says more about you now more than ever.