This is the script exec'ed by my .bashrc that displays a crappy ascii 'picture' and text centered on screen as a banner. It was annoying to write, is completely useless and full of bashisms, but is interesting nonetheless.

.logo.rc.sh

#!/bin/bash
#
#    rc.logo - Crappy welcome mat for unix shells
#    2010-2011 Alexandre Gauthier <alex@lab.underwares.org>
#
#    Displays usless ascii logo, information and random niceties
#    on login.
#
#####################################################################

GOODTERMINAL=0

PIX=$HOME/.asciilogo
FOOTER=$HOME/.logotail

# Is the terminal known, and as a side effect,
# are we running interactively?
for i in xterm xterm-color linux screen screen-bce; do
	if [ "$i" = "$TERM" ] ; then
		GOODTERMINAL=1
	fi
done

if [ $GOODTERMINAL -eq 1 ] ; then

	# Define term dimensions
	# (tput cols would have worked for width)
	CTERMW=`stty size | cut -d ' ' -f 2`
	CTERMH=`stty size | cut -d ' ' -f 1`
	
	# Awk subroutine to print a file center aligned
	printcenter(){
                awk '{
                        l=length()
                        s=int(('$CTERMW'-l)/2)
                        printf "%"(s+l)"s\n",$0
		}' $1
	}

	#### begin ####

	# Validate footer's existence
	if [ ! -f $FOOTER ] ; then
		FOOTER=""
	else
		# Do not print footer if terminal is too short
		if [ $CTERMH -lt 30 ] ; then
			FOOTER=""
		fi
	fi

	tput clear
	
	# Output picture
	if [ -f $PIX ] ; then
		imgh=`wc -l $PIX | awk '{ print $1;}'`

		# Add padding for footer/tail message
		if [ -n "$FOOTER" ] ; then
			# Image + Footer lenght + newline
			imgh=$(((${imgh}+`wc -l $FOOTER | awk '{ print $1;}'`)+1))
		fi
		
		let tposh=($CTERMH-$imgh)/2

		# prepare cursor position and attributes
		tput bold
		tput cup $tposh 0 
		
		printcenter $PIX
	else
		let tposh=($CTERM-1)/2
		tput cup $posh 0
		tput rev
		echo "[ scene missing ]"
		tput sgr0
	fi

	# Back to normal, print footer
	if [ -n "$FOOTER" ] ; then
		echo ""
		tput sgr0
		tput dim

		TMPFILE=".$$-login"

		sed -e 's/%h/'"$(hostname -f)"'/g'\
			-e 's/%v/'"$(uname -sr)"'/g'\
				$FOOTER >> $TMPFILE
		
		printcenter $TMPFILE
		rm -f $TMPFILE
	fi
	
	tput sgr0
	tput cup $CTERMH 0
fi