Have you ever put words or graphics inside a rectangular frame? There’s a good reason not to. While words are full of meaning, a frame is generally a non-communicating element. Technically, it communicates — four straight sides, four corners, a length, a width, a thickness, a color, an inside, an outside, lots of things, mostly noise, that your eye must process but which say nothing. If you don’t need a frame, don’t use one.

Saw this recently in church. On the wall behind the choir is a projection screen . . .

. . . that looks ordinary enough, but why is it there? It breaks up an otherwise clean wall, casts a shadow, constrains the words to an artificially small space. It adds a black edge, corners, a second surface. It even motors up and down.

You don’t need this. Design-wise, you don’t need anything up there. All you need is a way for the congregation (or any audience) to follow the words.

They could be memorized. They could be in a handheld book or on a smartphone; they could stream through earbuds. Whatever. Easiest is just this . . .

Beam the words straight onto the wall. They appear out of thin air, release their information, then disappear without a trace. Nothing material. No distraction. Just communication.

At the state fair last month we came across this small display . . .

. . . which is the same idea. No reason to add a frame; just write on the wall. The words are the point.

(Formal Futura type isn’t the right choice to express the casual tone above, but that’s another story.)

This works everywhere — wall, poster, web page, print page, with graphics or without. If mechanical constraints don’t require a border but you’re tempted to add one, ask yourself why.

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We cover this topic in greater depth in the “Get Unblocked” segment of our Design Essentials video, and in our course Before & After: Things Every Designer Should Know, at lynda.com.