Python, printing separate index's from dictionary - python-3.x

Question

Here's a shortened version of my code. Basically, I have a dictionary that stores a list that contains my ascii letter. I am prompting the user for a choice of letters to then be printed out with the special design. The second user input is used to decide how to print the letters. 'h' = horizontal and 'v' = vertical. The vertical section works perfectly. The horizontal does not.
def print_banner(input_string, direction):
'''
Function declares a list of ascii characters, and arranges the characters in order to be printed.
'''
ascii_letter = {'a': [" _______ ",
"( ___ )",
"| ( ) |",
"| (___) |",
"| ___ |",
"| ( ) |",
"| ) ( |",
"|/ \|"]}
# Branch that encompasses the horizontal banner
if direction == "h":
# Letters are 8 lines tall
for i in range(8):
for letter in range(len(input_string)):
# Dict[LetterIndex[ListIndex]][Line]
print(ascii_letter[input_string[letter]][i], end=" ")
print(" ")
# Branch that encompasses the vertical banner
elif direction == "v":
for letter in input_string:
for item in ascii_letter[letter]:
print(item)
def main():
user_input = input("Enter a word to convert it to ascii: ").lower()
user_direction = input("Enter a direction to display: ").lower()
print_banner(user_input, user_direction)
# This is my desired output if input is aa
_______ _______
( ___ ) ( ___ )
| ( ) | | ( ) |
| (___) | | (___) |
| ___ | | ___ |
| ( ) | | ( ) |
| ) ( | | ) ( |
|/ \| |/ \|
#What i get instead is:
_______
_______
( ___ )
( ___ )
| ( ) |
| ( ) |
| (___) |
| (___) |
| ___ |
| ___ |
| ( ) |
| ( ) |
| ) ( |
| ) ( |
|/ \|
|/ \|

Answer 1

You could zip the lines together and then join them:
if direction == "h":
zipped = zip(*(ascii_letter[char] for char in input_string))
for line in zipped:
print(' '.join(line))
Or just with the index:
if direction == "h":
for i in range(8):
for char in input_string:
print(ascii_letter[char][i], end=' ')
print()