'/static/css/creative.css' i get that static is established prefix but why is public folder missing from this path?

In the second parameter he's establishing what folder we want to target i.e. the /public folder:

express.static(__dirname + '/public/')

In the first parameter, we're taking the target folder and renaming it to static:

'/static/'

You could include the public folder in the path if you like, by writing it like this:

app.use('/static/public', express.static(__dirname + '/public/'));

or if you just wanted to maintain the actual folder structure you could write:

app.use('/public', express.static(__dirname + '/public/'));

Hi.

/static/css/creative.css -> this is so called absolute path -> the first / denotes the root directory and means that in the root directory there is a folder named static

static/public/css/creative.css -> this is so called relative path -> this mean that the folder static could be in in any folder in the system

And the answer to your question -> the public is missing because the static folder is an established prefix path.

/static = public

If I'm really on point here.

It's because in the previous video Setting Up the Express Static Server in Development, Huston specified the /public path as the argument to the call to express.static, which is Express's static server module.

You could technically call the folder whatever you like, I think public is also just a common convention used on web servers.