You'll find the surface mount versions (SOIC14, SOIC16 etc) are much cheaper these days
as they are used in quantity in new designs.
The 74HC family has the advantage of running on 2 to 6V and is widely available. The
74HCT family only runs at 5V and is designed for interworking with TTL.
Definitely avoid TTL or even LS TTL, the power consumption will be huge for such
a project, CMOS will run off a small battery (well if there aren't too many LEDs).
There are CPU bitslice chips in the 74XX series if I remember right,