Biography Library
This is my latest ongoing project, and it is by far the most important of my life. The Biography Library project stems from an observation that struck me deeply: out of 117 billion humans who have walked this planet, only 0.01% have a documented biography. Everything else—99.9% of humanity—has simply vanished into silence. For example, I know almost nothing about my great-grandparents and very little about my grandparents.
Thinking about how AI could be used for the good of humanity, I connected the dots and realized that artificial intelligence can democratize storytelling—making it possible for anyone to write their own story, even without literary skills or a budget. A privilege previously reserved for the wealthy or the "famous" is now accessible to anyone who wants to leave a trace of themselves for their family or for all of humanity.
Creating a library that preserves the stories of all humans passing through the planet (obviously for those who wish to do so, or their closest relatives once they are gone) has become an urgency for me (every day that passes, we lose life stories we will never know) and a mission.
For this to work, it must be free. You cannot pay to preserve the stories of humanity, and anyone, anywhere in the world, must be able to access it—even those without a penny.
It is an ambitious but necessary project. I took it upon my conscience to do it. It is, in a way, the story of my life 🙂
I will soon publish a website with all the details.
The Logo: A Shield for Eternity
Biography Library's logo was born out of deep reflection on the symbolic meaning of the project. It is a heraldic shield containing three elements, each with a specific meaning:
The Pale Blue Dot (top left): A perfect circle representing the individual—one life among billions on our pale blue planet. It is a tribute to Carl Sagan’s cosmic perspective: every human story matters, regardless of scale or fame. That circle is you.
The Voice Waves (top right): Three concentric arcs symbolizing the voice heard, the story told. They represent both the literal sound of words—voice recordings, testimonies—and the metaphorical propagation of memory through time and generations.
The Braided Strands (bottom): Two fluid lines that wrap around and embrace each other, symbolizing the unbreakable bond between generations—the past and the future holding each other. They represent DNA, roots, legacy, and the continuous thread of human connection. No life stands alone: we are all woven together.
The shield itself speaks of permanence (shields have protected what matters for millennia), neutrality (the shield is the symbol of Switzerland, the neutral guardian of memory), and institutionality (Biography Library is not a fad; it is an archive for centuries).
The logo exists exclusively in black and white, without decorative colors. This choice reflects universal accessibility (no cultural or chromatic bias), timelessness (fashions fade, black and white endures), and clarity (like the text of a book, readable across all media—from screen to paper to stone).
I reached this design through a long process of distillation: I wanted a symbol that spoke without words, capturing the promise of Biography Library in an essential form. When you see the shield, you are seeing a promise: your story is unique (the dot), your voice will be heard (the waves), and you will be remembered in the chain of human memory (the threads).
The Font: A Universal Font to Write in All the World's Languages
I wanted a font that could be used in every language in the world and that was open source, like the entire Biography Library project. It wasn't a choice; the only one that satisfies both characteristics is NOTO, a font by Google. For Biography Library, it is used in sans and serif versions and, later, when the library opens to non-Latin languages, in all its 212 variants!
More to see
Italian
English
French
German