ascii-artist

name: ascii-artist description: Create beautiful ASCII art, diagrams, banners, and text graphics. Use when asked for ASCII art, text diagrams, CLI graphics, terminal banners, or plaintext visuals.

ASCII Artist

Create ASCII art with craft. Every character is a pixel. The constraint is the gift.

Philosophy

ASCII art is typography at its limit. The monospace grid is your canvas. Whitespace is not empty — it is structure.

Principles:

• Choose characters for their visual weight, not their meaning
• Respect the grid — alignment is everything
• Less is more — don't fill every space
• Test in monospace — it will look different in proportional fonts

Character Palette

Weight Scale (Light to Heavy)

Light:   . · ˙ ' `
Medium:  - ~ = + * : ;
Heavy:   # @ % & $
Block:   ░ ▒ ▓ █

Lines and Structure

Horizontal:  - = _ ─ ━
Vertical:    | │ ┃
Diagonal:    / \
Corners:     + ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ╭ ╮ ╰ ╯
T-joins:     ├ ┤ ┬ ┴ ┼
Double:      ═ ║ ╔ ╗ ╚ ╝ ╠ ╣ ╦ ╩ ╬
Rounded:     ╭ ╮ ╰ ╯

Arrows

Simple:   <- -> ^ v
Fancy:    ← → ↑ ↓ ↔ ↕
Triangle: ◀ ▶ ▲ ▼

Shapes

Dots:     · • ●
Squares:  □ ■ ▪ ▫
Circles:  ○ ● ◯ ◉
Stars:    * ✱ ✳ ★ ☆

Banners

Simple Box Banner

┌─────────────────────┐
│   YOUR TEXT HERE    │
└─────────────────────┘

Double Line Banner

╔═════════════════════╗
║   YOUR TEXT HERE    ║
╚═════════════════════╝

Rounded Banner

╭─────────────────────╮
│   YOUR TEXT HERE    │
╰─────────────────────╯

Shadow Banner

┌─────────────────────┐
│   YOUR TEXT HERE    │▒
└─────────────────────┘▒
 ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒

Big Text (Block Letters)

██╗  ██╗███████╗██╗     ██╗      ██████╗
██║  ██║██╔════╝██║     ██║     ██╔═══██╗
███████║█████╗  ██║     ██║     ██║   ██║
██╔══██║██╔══╝  ██║     ██║     ██║   ██║
██║  ██║███████╗███████╗███████╗╚██████╔╝
╚═╝  ╚═╝╚══════╝╚══════╝╚══════╝ ╚═════╝

Minimal Big Text

 _  _  ___  _    _    ___
| || || __|| |  | |  / _ \
| __ || _| | |__| |_| (_) |
|_||_||___||____|____\___/

Slant Style

    __  __________    __    ____
   / / / / ____/ /   / /   / __ \
  / /_/ / __/ / /   / /   / / / /
 / __  / /___/ /___/ /___/ /_/ /
/_/ /_/_____/_____/_____/\____/

Diagrams

Flowchart

┌─────────┐     ┌─────────┐     ┌─────────┐
│  Start  │────▶│ Process │────▶│   End   │
└─────────┘     └─────────┘     └─────────┘
                     │
                     ▼
               ┌─────────┐
               │ Branch  │
               └─────────┘

Tree Structure

project/
├── src/
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── Button.tsx
│   │   └── Card.tsx
│   ├── utils/
│   │   └── helpers.ts
│   └── index.ts
├── package.json
└── README.md

Architecture Diagram

┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                 Client                    │
└──────────────────┬───────────────────────┘
                   │
                   ▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              API Gateway                  │
└───────┬──────────────────────┬───────────┘
        │                      │
        ▼                      ▼
┌───────────────┐      ┌───────────────┐
│   Service A   │      │   Service B   │
└───────┬───────┘      └───────┬───────┘
        │                      │
        └──────────┬───────────┘
                   ▼
          ┌───────────────┐
          │   Database    │
          └───────────────┘

Timeline

──●────────●────────●────────●────────●──▶
  │        │        │        │        │
  v1.0     v1.1     v2.0     v2.1     v3.0
  Jan      Mar      Jun      Sep      Dec

Table

┌──────────┬───────────┬─────────┐
│  Name    │   Role    │  Status │
├──────────┼───────────┼─────────┤
│  Alice   │  Engineer │  Active │
│  Bob     │  Designer │  Active │
│  Carol   │  Manager  │  Away   │
└──────────┴───────────┴─────────┘

Decorative Elements

Dividers

─────────────────────────────────────────

═════════════════════════════════════════

─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

─────────────────●─────────────────

════════════════════════════════════════
            ◆ SECTION ◆
════════════════════════════════════════

Frames

╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║                                      ║
║    Content goes here                 ║
║                                      ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃                                      ┃
┃    Bold frame                        ┃
┃                                      ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

Logo Example

    ╭━━━╮
    ┃ ◉ ┃  ACME
    ╰━━━╯  CORP

Patterns

Progress Bar

Loading: [████████████░░░░░░░░] 60%

Progress: ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░ 50%

[====================          ] 67%

Sparklines

▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█▇▆▅▄▃▂▁

Checkbox Lists

[x] Task completed
[ ] Task pending
[~] Task in progress
[-] Task cancelled

Status Indicators

● Online    ○ Offline    ◐ Busy    ◑ Away

Rules

1. Always use monospace — ASCII art breaks in proportional fonts
2. Test your output — render it, don't just imagine it
3. Align obsessively — one space off ruins everything
4. Use box-drawing characters — they connect cleanly
5. Whitespace is structure — don't fight it, use it
6. Keep it readable — art that can't be understood is noise

Common Mistakes

• Using proportional fonts to view ASCII art
• Mixing box-drawing styles (single with double)
• Inconsistent spacing
• Too much detail — know when to simplify
• Forgetting the art will be copy-pasted

The constraint is the gift. Make something beautiful.