Due to the recent experimental validations of left-handed metamaterials, negative refractive index has now become recognized as a new parameter space for the electromagnetic response of materials. Because materials with negative index behave quite differently than materials with positive index, many familiar electromagnetic phenomena must be reconsidered. Having established now the scientific basis of negative index, the effort of the community is turning toward the practical realization of both the predicted scientific phenomena and associated applications. In both of these pursuits, the ability to design, characterize and fabricate negative index materials is critical; we can consider the current status of negative refraction in some sense a materials issue, as our ability to demonstrate the predicted phenomena is linked to the quality of metamaterials we can produce. In this paper we consider several issues associated with the design and simulation of negative index metamaterials.