Donna, In short, education is all about marketing. We just happen to be peddling knowledge rather than a good or service. My research found that students do read into text -- just as we read into advertising. It's not something that schools tend to take into consideration, however. With increasing competition for students, though, we need to think about brand perception even in the most mundane areas, such as emails and LMS. I attempted to pull up a copy to paste a link, but I think my company's firewall is causing problems. Here's the citation to help you find it: Louch, Michelle O'Brien. "A study of the influence of typeface in online instructor e-mails on online student perception." PhD diss., ROBERT MORRIS UNIVERSITY, 2011. I'm currently in the process of replicating my original study and making some minor changes to the survey instrument. Thanks for your interest, Michelle