The 900 individual symbols of the system are called "Bliss-characters"; these may be "ideographic" – representing abstract concepts, "pictographic" – a direct representation of objects, or "composite" – in which two or more existing Bliss-characters have been superimposed to represent a new meaning. Size, orientation and relation to the "skyline" and "earthline" affects the meaning of each symbol.[11] A single concept is called a "Bliss-word", which can consist of one or more Bliss-characters.