Visual language is a communication system that uses images. It has several key elements, including a transmitter who creates a message, a message or image itself, a channel to transmit the message through, a code of visual rules, and a receiver who interprets the message. Images have both a signifier, which is their physical appearance, and a signified, which is their meaning. Visual language can have informative, aesthetic, expressive, or exhortative functions depending on the message being conveyed. Images can also vary in their level of iconicity or similarity to reality, from highly realistic photographs to abstract images with no representation of reality.