A simple image with a broad audience
The Museum of Modern Art identifies Give It Your Best! as a 1942 offset lithograph by Charles Coiner. The American flag takes up most of the composition, with a short instruction below. There is no named regiment, pictured enemy or detailed list of tasks.
That restraint leaves the appeal open to many kinds of contribution. A viewer could connect “best” with factory work, service or another wartime responsibility. The flag supplies the shared identity; the slogan asks for a personal standard of effort.
Look closely at the layout
Horizontal stripes provide the main visual rhythm. The dark lettering anchors the lower edge without competing with the flag’s geometry. The absence of an elaborate scene makes this one of the collection’s clearest examples of graphic economy.
It is particularly revealing beside Striking Power, where ships and aircraft spell out the connection between work and war. Coiner’s design leaves that connection implicit. Both address commitment, but one relies on explanation and the other on a symbol already familiar to its audience.