Tighten Your Grip!
A black pair of pincers or tongs closes on a cracking red swastika built of bricks, under the slogan 'Tighten Your Grip!'. The tell for name-calling is that the enemy is reduced to its emblem and shown as an object being broken; the poster does not say what the viewer is asked to do.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1939
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- HM Stationery Office; artist Frank Newbould; printed by Fosh & Cross, Ltd., London
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Churchill Government
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (UK Crown copyright, 50 years from publication, expired before 1996; no URAA restoration)
HM Stationery Office; artist Frank Newbould; printed by Fosh & Cross, Ltd., London, undated (NARA gives no date). U.S. National Archives, NAID 44267269, local identifier 44-PF-472.
Text on the object
TIGHTEN YOUR GRIP! FRANK NEWBOULD PRINTED FOR H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE BY FOSH & CROSS LTD., LONDON (51/2085)
