Categorized products based on manufacturer in sidebar? Is this possible?

[MarcoPas]

Hi there i was wondering how i can achieve my requirement to have a list of categorized products per manufacturer.

The ultimate goal is to let my clients present a list more or less with this layout in the sidebar:

product category 1
product category 2
- sub category
- sub category
- sub category
- sub category


product category 3
- sub category
- sub category

etc..

In this requirement i have 2 challenges/questions:
1) Should i create manufacturer categories or not ?
2) how can i create a list like this with the logo instead of the text ?