Hi,
That all looks excellent and I'll definitely go down the road of either solder up a pcb (or veroboard) or use a Pro Mini or similar.
Back in the early '70s I did do some electronics at college. That was a long time ago, components were a lot bigger and making pcbs with copper clad board, indelible felt pen, mini drill and ferric chloride was easy enough. So I'm certainly up for a bit of soldering.
So this TPIC6x595 sounds a good idea....where do I start with finding out more about how to use it?
Many many thanks
Ron
PS Here is a link to a page on Instructables. The LCD I'm using is the same as this one.