Using the new banners in snapshot 14w30b, I created each of the letters of the English alphabet, digits 0-9, and some punctuation, so text can be written with banners. I used black and white, but any two colours can be used.

The steps for each letter are in the spoiler below (spoilered for length). For some letters the order the elements are added in matters, so they are given in order.

Here are digits 0-9.

Here is the punctuation I was able to make. Not all english punctuation is here, but most of the common ones are: !%^_-[]|:;="',.+()/\.