Back in 2020, I had just moved into a new flat in London and started a little tradition: April Appreciation. What began as a small gathering has since grown into one of my favourite ways to celebrate the community I’m lucky to be part of.

The idea is simple — to flip the script on celebration. Instead of focusing on one person (like a birthday or anniversary), April Appreciation is about recognising everyone. It’s about the people who show up in our lives, who inspire us, challenge us, laugh with us, and grow alongside us.

London can be both electrifying and exhausting—bursting with events and energy one moment, and cold, grey, and emotionally draughty the next. After months of winter hibernation, it felt right to mark the arrival of spring with a collective exhale (and a party).

For this event, I really enjoyed flexing my creative muscles — putting my design skills to work in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign to create the event poster, and experimented with AI (playing around with ChatGPT and DeepSeek) to brainstorm dress-up themes, craft playful messaging for the group chat, and come up with questions for the trivia quiz.

The event was a banging success:

• 25+ pax attendance

• 78% of invited guests showed up

• 16 AI-generated trivia questions

• 6 dess-up nominations!

• 5 hrs of celebration