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What exactly is an art director opposed to character design?

Art Director (Bijutsukantoku)

The "bikan" creates "image boards", illustrations from the major points and locations in the script, defining the setting, colors and other details. This is much like the illustrations done by Syd Mead for Blade Runner. The art director then creates a detailed settei (model pack) for the background artists and key animators to work from and "art boards" which are rough backgrounds (BGs) to show the BG artists how the actual BGs will look.

When asked what the requirements for becoming an art director were, a well-known art director said, "Well, you have to be able to deal with the schedules the (expletives deleted) production people make so you have to be able to drink a lot."

In my opinion, the character design of Bokura ga Ita and Honey and Clover are quite different, although they are both evidently rooted from typical shoujo design. On the other hand, their backgrounds, directed by the same person, might share much higher degree of similarity, although most anime watchers don't pay much attention on the background.

I see what you're saying. So by that, perhaps the Art director would be resonsible for similarities such as this:

Does the show maintain its...i guess you could say 'goodness' throughout?

All other shots are common shoujo-styled laughters; they do bear some resemblance, but I don't think they were intentional in any way. Similar smiles can be found in many shoujo titles.