Venetian 301 is the Bitstream version of the Centaur type family. Centaur was designed by the American book designer Bruce Rogers on the basis of Venetian typefaces of 1470 of Nicolas Jenson. Beautiful Italic based on a face by Ludovico degli Arrighi was developed by Frederic Warde who was an American calligrapher and typography researcher was added as Italic to Centaur. Adapted for mechanical composition by English Monotype in 1929. Its lettershapes owe much to pen-drawn letters of Italian humanist minuscule and cursive. This elegant humanist face is useful for the finest typography both for book text and display matter. Cyrillic version included small caps was developed for ParaType in 2003 by Dmitry Kirsanov.

A round was added to a neat straight line to express a soft sensibility. It is a neat and flexible font using a clean and stable type of module.

It is a font designed in a balanced manner by optimizing the width and spacing of letters to make use of readability. Serif was treated as a curve to emphasize a soft and comfortable feeling. The serifs of the letters gave a distinct impression and gave it a natural look by adding inclination.