The 18th International Conference on Textures of Materials (ICOTOM 18) took place in St George, Utah, USA, November 5-10, 2017. ICOTOM-18 follows in the long "triennial" tradition of ICOTOM meetings initiated in 1969 in Clausthal, Germany and followed with: Cracow (1971), Pont-à-Mousson (1973), Cambridge (1975), Aachen (1978), Tokyo (1981), Noordwijkerhout (1984), Santa Fe (1987), Avignon (1990), Clausthal (1993), Xian (1996), Montreal (1999), Seoul (2002), Leuven (2005), Pittsburgh (2008), Mumbai (2011), Dresden (2014). ICOTOM-18 continued the fine scientific tradition of previous ICOTOMs fostering the fundamental understanding of the basic processes underlying the formation of texture and its relation to the anisotropic properties of polycrystalline materials. One of the motivating factors for holding ICOTOM in Utah was the long-standing contributions of Professor Brent L. Adams to the texture community. Professor Adam's spent much of his life and professional career in Utah. Brent's work in linking crystallographic orientation to microstructure led to the automation of Electron Backscatter Diffraction or EBSD, with seminal journal papers appearing 25 years before ICOTOM 18. The entire texture community has been instrumental in the incubation of this technology and the continued cultivation of both its development and application. With EBSD and other techniques providing textural information from the nano to the macro scale, our understanding of the links between the local orientation and texture evolution and material properties continues to grow. ICOTOM-18 provided a forum for both materials scientists and geologists to engage in the discussion of recent progress in texture and anisotropy research.