figlet

http://www.figlet.org has been the answer for a long time.

Here's a little script to print your message in a few of the default fonts:

message='lilium'
fonts=(slant shadow small big script digital bubble banner lean)
for f in "${fonts[@]}"; do
    printf -- "-------- %s\n\n" "$f"
    figlet -f "$message"
done

you can go here to see lots more examples of fonts you can get.

pyfiglet is handy also, and what I used in limbo