The look and feel designer

The roles within the look and feel of a digital product is listed below.

UI designer

A UI designer (User Interface designer) sets the final design of apps, website or other digital products. It’s all about pixel perfection, choosing colours and typography, design icons and build balance in the layout.

Visual designer

Similar to UI designer but it can also include design for marketing and branding material, like banners and logos. In some cases work with photos and create visual/brand guidelines.

UI and visual designers aren’t just “look and feel” designers that produce ‘pixel perfect’ work. That in my opinion is an huge understatement.

UI is a medium that guides and communicate with users, allowing them to ultimately succeed. Many aspects need to be considered with UI including microcopy, readability, information architecture and mental models to be considered.

You seem to be talking mainly about the ‘aesthetic’ side of UI design. While this is generally important in the enjoyability of the product, visually beautiful UI will not help when the user is confused and unable to understand your product.

Similarly, this is the case as well with visual design. Visual design is mostly a communication medium created through visual elements. Through the different techniques and elements such as colour, typography, spacing, noise, typography + more, visual design is about influencing people.

These are only my personal thoughts, but I more than welcome to any other thoughts or ideas