Ascii Art

Tips

• Preview 2-3 fonts and let the user pick their favorite
• Short text (1-8 chars) works best with detailed fonts like doom or block
• Long text works better with compact fonts like small or mini

Tool 2: Cowsay (Message Art)

Classic tool that wraps text in a speech bubble with an ASCII character.

Setup

sudo apt install cowsay -y    # Debian/Ubuntu
# brew install cowsay         # macOS

Usage

cowsay "Hello World"
cowsay -f tux "Linux rules"       # Tux the penguin
cowsay -f dragon "Rawr!"          # Dragon
cowsay -f stegosaurus "Roar!"     # Stegosaurus
cowthink "Hmm..."                  # Thought bubble
cowsay -l                          # List all characters

Available characters (50+)

beavis.zen, bong, bunny, cheese, daemon, default, dragon, dragon-and-cow, elephant, eyes, flaming-skull, ghostbusters, hellokitty, kiss, kitty, koala, luke-koala, mech-and-cow, meow, moofasa, moose, ren, sheep, skeleton, small, stegosaurus, stimpy, supermilker, surgery, three-eyes, turkey, turtle, tux, udder, vader, vader-koala, www

Eye/tongue modifiers

cowsay -b "Borg"       # =_= eyes
cowsay -d "Dead"       # x_x eyes
cowsay -g "Greedy"     # $_$ eyes
cowsay -p "Paranoid"   # @_@ eyes
cowsay -s "Stoned"     # *_* eyes
cowsay -w "Wired"      # O_O eyes
cowsay -e "OO" "Msg"   # Custom eyes
cowsay -T "U " "Msg"   # Custom tongue

Tool 3: Boxes (Decorative Borders)

Draw decorative ASCII art borders/frames around any text. 70+ built-in designs.

Setup

sudo apt install boxes -y    # Debian/Ubuntu
# brew install boxes         # macOS

Usage

echo "Hello World" | boxes                    # Default box
echo "Hello World" | boxes -d stone           # Stone border
echo "Hello World" | boxes -d parchment       # Parchment scroll
echo "Hello World" | boxes -d cat             # Cat border
echo "Hello World" | boxes -d dog             # Dog border
echo "Hello World" | boxes -d unicornsay      # Unicorn
echo "Hello World" | boxes -d diamonds        # Diamond pattern
echo "Hello World" | boxes -d c-cmt           # C-style comment
echo "Hello World" | boxes -d html-cmt        # HTML comment
echo "Hello World" | boxes -a c               # Center text
boxes -l                                       # List all 70+ designs

Combine with pyfiglet

python3 -m pyfiglet "HERMES" -f slant | boxes -d stone

Tool 4: TOIlet (Colored Text Art)

Like pyfiglet but with ANSI color effects and visual filters. Great for terminal eye candy.

Setup

sudo apt install toilet toilet-fonts -y    # Debian/Ubuntu
# brew install toilet                      # macOS

Usage

toilet "Hello World"                    # Basic text art
toilet -f bigmono12 "Hello"            # Specific font
toilet --gay "Rainbow!"                 # Rainbow coloring
toilet --metal "Metal!"                 # Metallic effect
toilet -F border "Bordered"             # Add border
toilet -F border --gay "Fancy!"         # Combined effects
toilet -f pagga "Block"                 # Block-style font (unique to toilet)
toilet -F list                          # List available filters

Filters

crop, gay (rainbow), metal, flip, flop, 180, left, right, border

Note: toilet outputs ANSI escape codes for colors — works in terminals but may not render in all contexts (e.g., plain text files, some chat platforms).

Tool 5: Image to ASCII Art

Convert images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WEBP) to ASCII art.

Option A: ascii-image-converter (recommended, modern)

# Install via snap or Go
sudo snap install ascii-image-converter
# OR: go install github.com/TheZoraiz/ascii-image-converter@latest

ascii-image-converter image.png                  # Basic
ascii-image-converter image.png -C               # Color output
ascii-image-converter image.png -d 60,30         # Set dimensions
ascii-image-converter image.png -b               # Braille characters
ascii-image-converter image.png -n               # Negative/inverted
ascii-image-converter https://url/image.jpg      # Direct URL
ascii-image-converter image.png --save-txt out   # Save as text

Option B: jp2a (lightweight, JPEG only)

sudo apt install jp2a -y
jp2a --width=80 image.jpg
jp2a --colors image.jpg              # Colorized

Tool 6: Search Pre-Made ASCII Art (Web APIs)

Search curated ASCII art databases via web_extract. No API keys needed.

Source A: emojicombos.com (recommended first)

Huge collection of ASCII art, dot art, kaomoji, and emoji combos. Modern, meme-aware, user-submitted content. Great for pop culture, animals, objects, aesthetics.

URL pattern: https://emojicombos.com/{term}-ascii-art

web_extract(urls=["https://emojicombos.com/cat-ascii-art"])
web_extract(urls=["https://emojicombos.com/rocket-ascii-art"])
web_extract(urls=["https://emojicombos.com/dragon-ascii-art"])
web_extract(urls=["https://emojicombos.com/skull-ascii-art"])
web_extract(urls=["https://emojicombos.com/heart-ascii-art"])

Tips:

• Use hyphenated search terms: hello-kitty-ascii-art, star-wars-ascii-art
• Returns a mix of classic ASCII, Braille dot art, and kaomoji — pick the best style for the user
• Includes modern meme art and pop culture references
• Great for kaomoji/emoticons too: https://emojicombos.com/cat-kaomoji

Source B: asciiart.eu (classic archive)

11,000+ classic ASCII artworks organized by category. More traditional/vintage art.

Browse by category (use as URL paths):

• animals/cats, animals/dogs, animals/birds, animals/horses
• animals/dolphins, animals/dragons, animals/insects
• space/rockets, space/stars, space/planets
• vehicles/cars, vehicles/ships, vehicles/airplanes
• food-and-drinks/coffee, food-and-drinks/beer
• computers/computers, electronics/robots
• art-and-design/hearts, art-and-design/skulls
• plants/flowers, plants/trees
• mythology/dragons, mythology/unicorns

web_extract(urls=["https://www.asciiart.eu/animals/cats"])
web_extract(urls=["https://www.asciiart.eu/search?q=rocket"])

Tips:

• Preserve artist initials/signatures (e.g., jgs, hjw) — this is important etiquette
• Better for classic/vintage ASCII art style

Source C: GitHub Octocat API (fun easter egg)

Returns a random GitHub Octocat with a quote. No auth needed.

curl -s https://api.github.com/octocat

Tool 7: LLM-Generated Custom Art (Fallback)

When tools above don't have what's needed, generate ASCII art directly using these Unicode characters:

Character Palette

Box Drawing: ╔ ╗ ╚ ╝ ║ ═ ╠ ╣ ╦ ╩ ╬ ┌ ┐ └ ┘ │ ─ ├ ┤ ┬ ┴ ┼ ╭ ╮ ╰ ╯

Block Elements: ░ ▒ ▓ █ ▄ ▀ ▌ ▐ ▖ ▗ ▘ ▝ ▚ ▞

Geometric & Symbols: ◆ ◇ ◈ ● ○ ◉ ■ □ ▲ △ ▼ ▽ ★ ☆ ✦ ✧ ◀ ▶ ◁ ▷ ⬡ ⬢ ⌂

Rules

• Max width: 60 characters per line (terminal-safe)
• Max height: 15 lines for banners, 25 for scenes
• Monospace only: output must render correctly in fixed-width fonts

Fun Extras

Star Wars in ASCII (via telnet)

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

Useful Resources

• asciiart.eu — 11,000+ artworks, searchable
• patorjk.com/software/taag — Web-based text-to-ASCII with font preview
• asciiflow.com — Interactive ASCII diagram editor (browser)
• awesome-ascii-art — Curated resource list

Decision Flow

1. Text as a banner → pyfiglet (or toilet for colored output)
2. Wrap a message in fun character art → cowsay
3. Add decorative border/frame → boxes (can combine with pyfiglet)
4. Art of a thing (cat, rocket, dragon) → emojicombos.com first, then asciiart.eu
5. Kaomoji / emoticons → emojicombos.com ({term}-kaomoji)
6. Convert an image to ASCII → ascii-image-converter or jp2a
7. Something custom/creative → LLM generation with Unicode palette
8. Any tool not installed → install it, or fall back to next option