Frames in adverts serve the purpose of structuring a message for the reader or viewer to interpret. A highly visible frame -- and perhaps the most common -- is a border which separates one image, text, or font from others on the page. Such borders can take many shapes and sizes and guises. Likewise, finding the frames may not be as simple as determining the page breaks. As we will see, the reader may need to look at other aspects of framing and its devices in order to begin deciphering and determining the meaning which has been put together by the advertiser.

Meaning in advertisements is structured and guided by means of frames and framing devices. For decades, advertisers made their graphic frames explicit and visible, although in recent years there has been a move toward erasing the literal lines of frames. Since most viewers have long since learned to make sense of the reading rules imposed by frames as if they were natural, their formal removal does not dramatically alter the way we read ads.

In this ad for ASPEN cologne the page itself is the border which marks it as separate from other ads or magazine articles. As we saw in the Bill Blass ad where the border (frame) is broken, this remind us that, in fact, borders are only imaginary lines which set up an inside/outside opposition for the sake of defining what lies inside these lines. "As 'messages intended to organize the perception of the viewer,' frames permit the inclusion of certain messages and relations while excluding others" (Bateson, 1972: 187 cited in Goldman, 1992: 65). What is missing from an ad is just as important for what an ad might mean, as what is included in the ad.

Different ads use different frames. A Lee Jeans ad (this section) uses a layered and ripped look to help create a collage or diary feel for their stamped Lee Logo. The Bill Blass ad plays on the ornate bourgeoisie picture frame to give meaning to its content, whereas the well-known energizer bunny series of ads plays on the premise of the Energizer rabbit breaking through the barriers of advertising borders and frames to disrupt the hype. The frames within the Aspen ad are tacit in the sense that the creator is not asking the reader to identify and critic the use of borders as in the Bill Blass ad. The creator is in fact asking the reader to put the interior frames together and place them into a bottle without the reader questioning the validity of this process. This process of advertisers creating meanings through framing is what we will explore here and in the framing section.