jQuery Validate - Hide display validation error messages / show custom errors

I'm using jQuery Validate, but I really don't want to have any error messages whatsoever. Rather, I need to have red boxes around offending inputs/selects/etc. These red boxes were a piece of cake to add, but I still cannot remove error messages themselves. How do I disable them altogether?

Use a custom error placement function (see the plugin's options) that doesn't append the error message to anything.

$('#form').validate({
  errorPlacement: function(error,element) {
    return true;
  }
});

Or you could put the error messages elsewhere on the page - say in a DIV at the top of the page.

You can override the showErrors function:

jQuery('form').validate({
    showErrors: function(errorMap, errorList) {
        // Do nothing here
    },
    onfocusout: false,
    onkeyup: false,
    rules: {
        email: {
            required: true
        }
    },
    messages: {
        email: {
            required: 'The email is required'
        }
    }
});

This is how I do it. Just put $.validator.messages.required = ''; before your call to initialise validate() i.e.:

$.validator.messages.required = '';
$('#formData').validate({});`

This will make it show the styles on the inputs, but no message labels!