Thats right, I forgot to mention that I will be having the pcbs made. So all of the parts will be fine pitch surface mount parts.
And yeah very true, do you have any recommendations on a specific atmega? Also, im thinking ill adapt the Arduino Playground - DirectDriveLEDMatrix code, but do you have any ideas on how I would do the communication?
@JoeN: As for the MAX6955, I feel like it would be more effort then its worth to make a whole new library, though i'm still definitely considering it, thanks! Also the cost of the MAX6955, is quite a bit higher then that of an atmega...
@CrossRoads: I would do that, but the entire project is going to be about the size (though thicker) of a credit card. So I don't want to have holes milled into the pcb, since im essentially cutting into the "front panel" of the board.